


Kallisti

by JessaLRynn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Chaos, F/M, Hail Eris, Humor, Light Angst, Mistaken Identity, Nonsense, Randomness, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 55,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9601970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: The Doctor assures her this is the weirdest planet they will ever set foot on. A truer statement has never been made, as Rose soon finds out.





	1. The Panic of the Time Lord

**Author's Note:**

> This story is very nearly 10 years old, can you believe it? I still love it. I hope you will too.
> 
> Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!!

"Rose!" The Doctor's shout through the TARDIS corridors was enough to wake sleeping gods from the dawn of Time, trapped forever in ages long past. It could not, apparently, make a dent in the slumber of the small human female whose actual name he had just called.

He stormed up the corridor and flung open her door with a bang. "Rose!" he shouted.

Nothing happened, because she wasn't there. He rolled his eyes, and tilted his head to listen. There was the sound of water pounding and something else, and he smiled. Rose was singing in the shower, and her voice was audible even over the water and through the door.

He rather thought his 7th self would have particularly liked her. Her singing voice was perfect for jazz, all smooth and rich and full of soul. Rose had a lot of soul, maybe more than any human being had ever possessed. When she filled her songs with it, there was something that quite snatched your breath away, even if you were a 900 – ok, closer to 1200, but what is the good in counting anymore, honestly – year old Time Lord.

Maybe they could have sung together. That thought amused him, even as it annoyed him. He also wondered if she would have liked him at all back then – he had even looked much older than her, then. Of course, she'd liked his big eared, straight jacketed former incarnation, so it was entirely possible.

He listened with wondering appreciation as her voice wove her spell around him, stood there utterly unconcerned for his dubious welcome, and cherished to his hearts the sound of her own heart pouring forth in the next room. He could only just make out the words if he poured his concentration into it, but he was much too busy concentrating on two other things at the moment. One, of course, was controlling the flow of his blood to prevent it all racing through his body at break-neck pressure. The other was ignoring the sound of the ancient time machine in his head giggling.

He, therefore, also did not hear the shower turn off, nor the sound of soft footsteps. So he was completely blind-sided when Rose stepped from her bathroom, wearing nothing but a tiny pink towel and a dreamy pink smile, into his line of vision. Then, of course, his blood got away and began a headlong plunge on a singular and specific mission somewhere just south of his midsection. He also lost his grip on his jaw, which plummeted in approximately the same direction as his blood.

She glared at him scathingly as he stood there like an emu and blinked at her. Then she advanced on him and, although one part of his body was insisting he stay right there because there would be a good chance of her losing her towel in the fight, she looked entirely too much like an infuriated Jackie, and his more sensible flight instincts kicked in. He turned to the door, hands over his eyes, and bolted, only stumbling a little.

"Let me know when you're decent," he shouted through the door that had slammed behind him. "No, well you're decent, of course, better than decent, quite impressive really, if I had to say so, which of course I would never ever ever do, I mean, not that I looked or anything really, but I mean you couldn't help but notice, at least I couldn't help but notice, so don't think this gives you the right to kill me. There's a queue, you see, really long one, lots and lots and lots of people, and things, and things which are also people, so you can't kill me, although if I had to pick a way I was going to die that wouldn't be quite as bad as say, I dunno, flung off a cliff... no, did that already, never mind. Maybe you could... what was I saying?"

"Doctor!" she shouted through the door, "you're nattering!"

"Oh. Right. Well. Nattering on, let me know when you're..." He cleared his throat, found himself talking around a lump in it, and squeaked. "Dressed, I guess."

Leaning against the wall, he counted to ten, backward, from the highest prime number he could remember. "You could have said something," he muttered at the TARDIS. She was too busy having spasms to even comment, and it was almost brilliant, really, this feeling in his head that his time ship partner, so often more depressed than he was these days, was having the time of her virtually endless life at him.

When Rose came out, he caught her hand and dragged her into the console room with all his usual manic energy. "Rose, you have got to do something!"

"Hang about, me? Doctor, you're the genius, I'm the ape, remember?"

"Right right," he said. "Genius, ape." He pointed to each of them as he said this, and Rose was laughing, mostly due to the fact that he had done his pointing backward for once. Not that he ever called people 'ape' in this incarnation, but the temptation was often there. He stopped and toyed with his ear. "I owe you an apology, I suppose, for earlier. I didn't mean to... I was - am - was and still am, in fact, panicking."

Rose gave him that wonderful smile of hers. "Why, are we in a War Zone or something?"

"No, no, no, it's much worse. We're on Malaclypse, and I don't want to be here, and she won't leave."

"Ok," said Rose, and walked around the console to peer a him. "How can I help, then?"

"Talk to her," he pleaded. "I told her and told her I want to go, and she won't listen to me." He knew he was whinging, getting close to sounding like Mickey the Idiot, back when he was still an idiot, and he didn't care. "I asked her nicely. I pleaded, I begged, I threatened. She won't take off." He grasped a roundhole tightly, fully intent on banging his head against it.

Rose shook her head at him, and came over to hug him, for which he was grateful. "You sound like a kid who's been told he's got to go visit his crazy Aunt, Doctor. What's wrong with Malaclypse?"

"Everything, everything you can possibly think of. They're like that singing fish your mum had. They're like... how do I explain this?" He clicked his fingers sharply. "Look, how many Malaclypse engineers does it take to change a light bulb?"

She blinked at the apparent non sequitur. "Dunno. Two?"

"Yes," he said, "exactly! Two. One to fetch the ladder to the roof and one to chuck brightly colored French bread rolls at the telly."

She considered this for a moment, and then giggled. "You mean they're like you. They like everything with a side of nuts!"

He couldn't help it. He grinned. "All right, yeah, I resemble that, but still." He paused, just for the drama of it. "Don't you think I'm enough to go round, then?"

She rolled her eyes again, and they twinkled merrily at him. "Why? D'you come in six packs, then?" She snorted at him, while he gaped at her, trying to decide whether to grin or panic again. "What'd she say when you told her you'd rather skive off?"

He rolled his eyes, now, and turned toward the corridor to find them some appropriate clothes. "She laughed at me. She's STILL laughing at me."

And then, of course, so was Rose.


	2. Chain, Chain, Chain

"I didn't invent it, Rose!" the Doctor argued as they entered the console room in their new clothes. "I didn't even want to go out, but now all the females in my life are having a go at me, and I'll bet you any amount of money Jackie Tyler put her up to this! That woman could conquer empires with that voice and that slap, Rose. Good thing she was born before cloning, or we'd all be up to our ears in the evil forces of Jackie Tyler's dictatorship!"

"I'll tell 'er ya said it, yeah? She'll probably be right impressed." She grinned at him dryly, still trying to sort out how she felt about the thing she was holding in her hand.

"No no no no no no no! She'll hit me, I know she will. Look, all I'm saying is they don't even understand their crazy customs. And by their customs men have to be..."

"But why? I mean, yeah it's great getting my own back after those last four women-are-to-be-groped-not-heard planets, but I dunno 'bout this." She held up the thing in her hand, shaking back the too-long sleeves of the ridiculous coat she was wearing. "Did Jack leave this here or something?"

He sighed. "Probably. Or I was here before. Or she's having another laugh at my expense. You gotta admit, it's fetching." He tilted back his head and the bright jewelry at his throat caught the light and sparkled brilliantly at her, but not quite so brilliantly as his grin. This was one of the things she loved about him the most. Even when he was drowning in the chaos around him, he could pull himself and his arrogant ego, and her too, above it at the drop of a hat.

Right at the moment, though, his hat probably had already been dropped too much. It was an old, battered fedora, and it had obviously seen better days long before he'd found it. His blue pin-striped suit was still blue, but the stripes were now in every loud color of the rainbow over a shirt that even Jack wouldn't have been caught dead in the woods wearing. The tie defied description, but if she had to say anything it would be "evil."

Still, she'd talked him out of the leather trousers. They had both looked at those and giggled several times but in the end decided against them. "Jack wore them, you know he did, to that god-awful bar he dragged us to. They were so tight on him you could tell his parents' religion." The Doctor had been so flummoxed by that statement, she'd nearly bloodied her lip trying to keep from laughing at him. He had apparently changed clothes and then gone to try to run down the source of the statement in the TARDIS computer.

She had arrived a few minutes later, wearing the outfit they'd picked for her - bright red jeans and a spaghetti strap blue top - she felt like she'd escaped from the 80s - and, over it all, the loudest jacket or most jacket shaped quilt she'd ever seen in her entire life, hanging down most of the way to her ankles. It was, apparently, the Doctor's, one of the signatures of an earlier regeneration of his. She'd laughed out loud and asked him how in the world he'd avoided getting stoned while wearing it, and he'd confessed that he thought he had been once. She didn't know what he'd looked like while wearing this coat - probably distinctly dotty - but she did know that the Doctor who'd worn this coat had been a large man compared to the ones she knew, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered. And she knew she liked the way it smelled. The cologne was different from his usual, but the underlying smell was decisively him - the thing that convinced her above all others that her Doctor was still her Doctor - that smell of Time and the unknown.

Now, standing here waiting for him to work up the nerve, she drew the coat close and inhaled, smiling, and looked up to realize the Doctor was still watching her. His dark eyes had gone almost black, and his face was set and stern. She didn't know what to make of that expression but, by the time he realized she was watching him, it cleared. He grinned at her broadly and took her hand, the one carrying this idea she still hadn't gotten used to.

"So, ready to go then?" he asked. "It's a female dominated planet, and they worship an old goddess. Should be right up your alley. Speaking of which, Bowling Alleys are sacred here, so no astonished remarks about that, please."

"Right." She shook her head. "What about this then?"

His grin broadened, though she wouldn't have believed it possible. "Don't let it go, Rose. You wouldn't want someone to steal your property, would you?"

She looked at her toes so he couldn't see her blush at the implications of that statement. "Yeah, well," she managed finally as they opened the door to what the Doctor had assured her would be the weirdest world she would ever see, "it sorta adds a whole new dimension to the idea of unleashing you on something, right?"

His laugh was both merry and proud as he lead her away from the TARDIS, his hand on the arm that held the chain attached to his brightly displayed jeweled collar.


	3. Presents and Presence

They arrived in the nearest town, and it became plain immediately that the Doctor wasn't exaggerating by half. Everything, every building, every street sign, every table, booth, and bird house, even the streets under foot themselves, was done in the most outlandish and garish manner possible. There was a building at the corner of the first street they came to that looked as if it had been built upside down. Considering it was a pyramid - or supposed to be - this was quite alarming and breath-taking at once. Several of the houses seemed to be patently absurd, either being colors impossible in nature, or built to look like other things, such as oversized boots or watering cans.  
"Cor, we should've just materialized on an empty lot and set up housekeeping, Doctor. Nobody'd even notice we were living in a small blue box."

The Doctor smiled indulgently at her, careful not to get too far from her. She looked positively darling in his oversized coat, and made him feel very strange and very protective of her all at once. Girls wearing your clothes had that effect, he'd been told by the human males he'd met over the years, but he'd rarely seen the phenomenon himself.

"What, I don't get even one complaint about going domestic?" she asked. "Now what'll I do?" She grinned up at him, her tongue poking through her teeth, and he longed - really, desperately longed - to go after it.

"Nothing to say, then, can't go about repeating myself all the time, can I?" he asked.

They came to an intersection and Rose suggested they go right, since straight seemed to go right into a large brick wall. The Doctor took her hand and led her forward, and they discovered a brightly lit tunnel under the wall.

"Seriously, Doctor, were they tripping when they built this place?"

He chuckled. "No, they're Discordians, and they worship Eris, the goddess of chaos."

"Well," she said, her head tilted to one side and her face alight with mischief, "if they worship chaos, you should be surrounded at any moment."

So they were. The moment they emerged from the tunnel, they had entered the city proper and it was teeming with people, laughter and merriment and loud cries of indistinguishable phrases. They seemed to have arrived into a large, unruly festival. The atmosphere of celebration was everywhere.

They walked up to a young couple in a tea shop along the wall. She had a broad silver cuff on her wrist and looked like she was wearing two skirts instead of skirt and blouse. The collar at his neck matched the cuff on her wrist, and a very long, delicate silver chain linked them. Rose thought she liked it rather better than the one she held in her right hand, thought it was rather more subtle.

"A greeting to you!" the Doctor said happily. "I was wondering what season we've arrived in. We're travelers - or maybe it's more we're..."

"Cabbage?" said the young man, curiously.

"No, thank you," said Rose, politely.

"He wants to know if we are cabbage, Rose," the Doctor said in that bright, chipper tone that usually meant he was thinking how silly she was. "Not if we want some."

"No, definitely not cabbage," Rose assured her audience. "Flower yes, me anyway, but he's a nut, not a cabbage."

"I wouldn't tell anyone," suggested the girl. "Some of them might be squirrels, you know?"

"Could've done with squirrels once or twice," the Doctor said, scratching the back of his head. "Couldn't help but noticing the celebrations, though."

"Oh, it's New Year - season of Chaos. We're all celebrating for the traditional five days unless we don't want to. Is that what you're here for, then?"

"Probably," the Doctor said. "But my ship appears to be a manifestation of the goddess this week, so I couldn't tell you for sure." They said goodbye to the couple and walked back out into the crowded street.

"Your ship probably is the goddess," Rose assured him in a quiet voice. "Don't you think that would explain a lot?"

"Possibly," he agreed thoughtfully. They went through another wall through a set of gates that had been installed upside down and nailed open. On the other side of the wall, Rose gasped and stopped.

Rising above them on the hilltop, seeming to float impossibly above it, was an incredible, inconceivable palace. It looked for all the world as if Escher and Piccasso had gotten DaVinci and Michaelangelo very very drunk one night and drawn up the plans. They had probably lost fully half of the effect then, by pouring a fifth of scotch over it, but handled it well by hiring an architect who'd had LSD permanently tattooed to his ear. "Now, that I like!" the Doctor exclaimed in pure, unvarnished happiness.

Rose grinned at him, while all around them, various people shouted "That I like!" back at them. She jangled the chain just a bit and sauntered over to the nearest booth to see what was for sale.

"Why was their chain attached to a cuff, Doctor? I've seen both types."

"That's the symbol of marriage," he replied, picking up a bright, pretty pink something from the table before them and turning it over. He put it back down in front of the sign saying 'Do not touch' and the proprietor grinned at him. "At the moment, I am property. If we were... um, that is... well, if one were to decide to formalize the arrangement, one would go to the temple, play a quick set, probably swear on someone else's holy book that one wanted nothing whatever to do with the other, and then have a good long snog before one even got out of the room." He managed with some effort not to blush at his almost slip of the tongue. "Then there'd be the public declaration of joining by nailing a collage to the front door. Or they do something else this month, I dunno. Either way. That'd be about the end of it, after that they'd wear the new chains, symbolizing their joining as equals."

"That's not half as strange as some we've seen, is it?" she asked.

"Nope. The Discordians don't believe in false bindings, but they now seem to believe very seriously in love. They profess that all chaos is caused by attempts at order, and that all order has chaos implicit. So I guess they've decided if they're going to be together, it will be chaotic, and free, and really rather wild, but they'll work together hand in hand." As he said this, he was contemplating the wares before him, but clutching his companion's hand very closely with the other, drawing circles on the back of it with his thumb. "They don't even have to keep the chain unless it's during ceremonial times, like this one. We've arrived at the best possible moment - except April first - that's a High Holy Day for these people. Or Saint Tibbs day, which you wouldn't want to see anyway." He raised her hand up and kissed the back of it briefly, then looked away so he wouldn't see her confused expression.

"I think I love it here," she said, quietly and sincerely, squeezing his hand and jingling the chain lightly.

The Doctor leaned over and found a small pendant with a tiny, vivid rosebud sealed inside it. It was a vibrant pink, just about the same color as her lips, and he felt like it had been waiting there, just for her. "How much?" he asked the proprietor.

"You can have it for a song," the proprietor replied, grinning. "A jar of her laughter would go far, too. Or twenty quid, if you got money."

"Silver and gold," he murmured. "Tell you what. How about I trade you?"

"Ok," the man agreed. "Fair trade for a fair trinket, I can work with that."

He dug through his pockets, pulling out things and putting them back again, moving things around, laying things out before him. Finally he found what he was looking for, a small silver and gold box. "It's full of apple seeds from Planet Earth," he said.

The man looked at the box with undisguised covetousness. "Sold," he replied, snatching it up, as though he believed the Doctor would change his mind.

The Doctor grinned as the proprietor also threw in a finely wrought silver chain for Rose's new necklace. "Kallisti," he told her quietly as he handed it to her.

She beamed at it, then him, and then she stood on her tiptoes, jerked his shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.


	4. Historical Interlude

As they walked further along, Rose found more questions than answers floating in her head. A young man and his friend glided by them, he wearing tie dye on every stitch, she dressed in pale and somber grecian robes. "What's Kallisti?" she asked.

His cheeks seemed a little pink beneath the noonday sun. "For the fairest," he said, softly, looking down at her with his face very close to hers.

She tilted her head up, her heart thundering in her chest, and wondered if this was finally the moment she'd been wishing for - not waiting, because you couldn't wait for something you never expected to happen - wondered if she was finally, finally going to find out what kissing him was really like. She batted her eyes closed and leaned in, expecting him to close the gap between them at any minute.

Instead, he cleared his throat nervously, and she felt a sigh on her forehead. "It started a war, once," he said, pulling back. "Or at least that's what old Earth mythology says."

She opened her eyes and stared at him as he backed away. She wondered suddenly if he had any idea what he was doing to her. He was an alien, after all, and so much more than she, so maybe he didn't understand her physical feeling at all. Wouldn't be surprising, would it, in someone who could completely exchange one body for another and still claim to be the same person. Still, she had gone over all these worries a hundred times before, so she pushed them back and concentrated on steadying her breathing. "What war?" she asked, to distract him from her distraction.

"Oh, the Trojan War. According to Earth and Discordian Mythology, the cause was the 'Original Snub' - Eris wasn't invited to a party the other gods were attending, so she chucked a golden apple marked with that word into the party and sat back to watch the fireworks. The goddesses all claimed the apple for themselves. Well, who's going to tell a goddess she isn't the most beautiful, anyway? And they argued incessantly over the apple, and Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each claimed it, and they were all probably in the right, at least by their ideals, so there was a very messy little cat fight - imagine your mum, three times over, fighting with each other over a little bit of gold when she can have all the gold she wants. So Zeus stepped in and picked a human arbitrator, the shepherd boy, Prince Paris of Troy. The three goddesses, who all wanted to get their own way, exactly like Jackie, you know, went to Paris before the decision and tried to bribe him. Hera promised him a fortune, and Athena promised him a great battle reputation, but Aphrodite promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Being a young lad and possibly a fool, he chose Aphrodite, who gave him Menelaus of Sparta's wife."

"Helen of Troy, right?" Rose interrupted. "Face could launch a thousand ships and all that."

"Exactly," he said and beamed at her. "Well, Menelaus wasn't giving that up without a fight, so he did indeed launch a thousand ships to get her back. You know, I can't think of what Helen had to say about all this."

"Well, if the goddess gave him her love, and she was the goddess of love, wouldn't Helen have loved him even if he was a bit of an idiot?"

"Hummm. Suppose so. Love was never known for being exactly rational."

"Tell me about it," she muttered. They continued along the busy market street, the Doctor chattering on about Homer and Clytemnestra and Achilles, and all sorts of other mythological dead people.

When he suddenly said something about hot dogs, though, she stopped him, looking up, completely confused. "What do hot dogs have to do with the price of fairy buns on Raxacoricoafallapatorius?"

He grinned. "Discordians, again. The hot dog was the solace of the goddess following The Original Snub. Of course, they don't eat buns."

"Is it you not making any sense, or them?"

"Couldn't tell you," he said. "You know me, Rose, can't ever make sense unless I'm making no sense at the same time."

She laughed lightly and fingered the flower at her neck. "Well, do we get to go to the party?"

"Up at the castle? Do you want to?" He waved the bit of psychic paper in front of her, smiling.

"Yep. Eris shoulda just got herself some psychic paper and had done with it."

He moved quickly, seeming to plan to race on ahead of her, but the rattle of the chain reminded him before she ended up being dragged behind him like a sled pulled behind a St. Bernard. "I could get used to this," she told him as he reached back and caught her hand.


	5. The Law of Fives

At the gates, they joined an enormous queue waiting to be checked by guards and admitted. Rose struck up a conversation with the young man behind them with the green hair, while the Doctor rolled his eyes. She collected pretty boys, it seemed, beautiful boys who wanted to follow a burning Rose into all sorts of the unknown, as long as they didn't have to take their eyes off her. The Doctor sighed. The young man in question was actually running loose, which on Malaclypse was likely to get him into trouble.

"Look!" the Doctor finally announced. The entire crowd, including the gate guards turned where he was pointing, so he took the opportunity to grab Rose's hand and jump the queue a bit.

"What was it?" someone demanded.

"Temporal shift," the Doctor announced. "Now we all have to play musical statues 'til our turn. Rose, sing."

"No," she said, her eyes twinkling merrily at him. "You sing."

"Nothing doing," he replied, "this isn't a karaoke bar in Nouvelle Switzerland. Sing."

"Not happening. Although now that you mention the karaoke bar, that was a nightmare. Promise me tonight's not gonna end like that?"

"Oi, now that was good."

"Doctor, you and Jack stood on the table and sang 'I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.' What was good about that?"

"I love that song," someone announced, and suddenly there was an entire chorus of a really, really bad song all along the length of the queue. The Doctor was laughing and singing along, and, just for fun, messing up the lyrics. The crowd took quite happily to his new version and were still singing when they reached the guard.

The Doctor handed them the psychic paper. "Rose Tyler, plus one," he said.

"Says here you've come to freeze Jell-o," the lady guard informed him.

"Does it?" said Rose, her face kept absolutely straight.

The Doctor beamed at her proudly for not showing any sign of surprise. "We should probably get inside so we can get on with it, then, don't you think?"

The guards considered them closely, taking in the Doctor's rich collar and Rose's haughty stance, and suddenly broke into matching grins. "Welcome in the name of the goddess, your Highness. The Polyfather will greet you in the grand throne room when he gets around to it. Make yourselves at home and don't forget to consult your pineal gland."

"Ta," Rose replied, and beamed at them both.

"Swordfish," the Doctor added as they stepped through the gates.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes as they wandered up the gaudily lit walkway. "What's a pineal gland?"

"Haven't the foggiest," he replied. "Something in your head, of course, but they seem to mean something else, so who knows."

"Not yours, though?"

He laughed. "I think I've got enough problems up there without funny human communications devices."

"No doubt! Freezing Jell-o, honestly."

He took her hand and bowed over it elegantly. "It worked, didn't it?"

She shook her head. "Good thing you didn't tell 'em you were gonna nail it to a tree, though. They'd've all turned out to see you try it. You're mad as a hatter, you are."

He touched her cheek with a cool, delicate hand. "Love me anyway," he suggested. Their eyes caught for just a second too long, and he watched hers darken and go hazy. "Right. Party. Are you coming?"

"Don't I always," she whispered, her tone somehow tender and melancholy at the same time. He found himself wondering if she meant the last part and hoping, somehow, that she meant the first.

The foyer of the palace looked at first glance like it had been decorated by kindergartners. The walls had been painted by the simple expedient of hurling huge buckets of paint at it and were so many different colors, the eye could be lost in it for days. There were hundreds of foggy photographs in cheap frames, all crooked and dangling precariously on the wall. Nothing seemed to make sense, but if you stepped well back from them and looked carefully, they suddenly resolved into a glorious landscape of Malaclypse at sunrise. The Doctor was absolutely enraptured by it. "Order from chaos from order!" he informed Rose humorously.

She laughed. "C'mon, Doctor. I need to find a pretty boy to dance with."

"You do?" he said, and his face took on a bit of a pout. "Thought I was pretty enough for you, Rose."

"You'll do, I suppose, for now."

Now he rolled his eyes and put a hand on her shoulder. "Really?"

"Nah," she said, and waved her arm at him. "Just yanking your chain!" And with that, she led him on into the Great Hall where the crowds of strangely dressed Discordians awaited.


	6. In Which Nothing Happens

The party that evening had gone well. Both Rose and the Doctor were utterly astonished to find themselves being escorted to a room in the east wing of the palace without even one tiny explosion. Well, the servant girl had insisted on addressing the Doctor as "your highness" but that was nothing particularly new, so they let it pass.  
It was a weird room, even by their experience, in that there were architectural anomalies everywhere. That's what the Doctor called the cinder block wall and the jigsaw puzzle shape. Rose called them the result of sheer bloody-mindedness, especially the fact that the attached bath had been bricked up from the top to the point that the Doctor had to stoop to go inside.

Still, the sitting area had star-shaped windows that looked out onto a garden that was quite lovely, while there were three enormous front windows that looked out over the grounds. Rose thought they were beautiful in their way, as they were randomly displayed panes of stained and clear glass and were all three shaped like hearts.

"We'll get to meet the Polyfather tomorrow," the Doctor said, as Rose dropped the chain with considerable distaste and headed toward the loo.

"Did you hear why he didn't come tonight, though? I thought I'd die laughing when that woman said he was having a game with a llama and loosing rather badly."

"Especially when she said it was a game of Twister," the Doctor agreed, smirking at her. "I wonder which sort of llama?"

She shed the patchwork coat and hung it on a random hook stuck just above her head. "I'm going to get cleaned up," she said, and reached into one of his pockets, pulling out a small comb after some few minutes. "Out of curiosity, do you have any little countries stowed in any of your pockets? Every time I reach into one, I'd swear I was going to find the Holy Grail or something."

"Think that's in my cricket jacket, actually," he said with a smile. "Or possibly the velvet frock coat that dandy I was as number eight wore. Oh, Rose, you should've seen him. Mind, you'd've probably tried to kidnap me or something, I was all willowy and sensitive."

Rose looked up at him and grinned as he fumbled with the collar he was wearing. "You're quite pretty as you are now," she said, and came over to him. "Course, I'm starting to think I'll like you no matter what you look like. C'mere, let me fix it."

He smiled sheepishly and came over to her, bending over so she could get the clasp opened. The speed with which he bowed to her had nothing whatever to do with looking at her breasts, she told herself firmly, no matter how close his position had brought him to them suddenly. She moved carefully to the side, avoiding his nose which was almost in her cleavage, and pulled the pin on the collar. If her hands lingered at the back of his neck, it had nothing whatever to do with her urge to touch him and everything to do with keeping the collar from falling to the floor, as she told herself quite firmly.

"You smell nice," he told her as she stepped away from him and he rose back to his full height. She chanced a look at him and his smile was innocent of any hint of guile. His eyes, however, were wide and darker than usual and full of mischief. He stepped closer.

"Don't you dare lick me," she threatened.

"I don't lick everything anymore, Rose," he replied defensively.

"Really? What was that thing with the fern at the party, then?"

"All right, so I licked the fern. It looked like rosemary, I wanted to see if it was related."

"Rosemary's like pine trees. Told me yourself."

"When did I say that?" he asked, puzzled.

"Over dinner one night when we went to New Orleans. I think it was New Orleans. Might've been Gal-9 Spectronica. Where ever, the point is, you coulda smelt it."

He sighed, his hand going to the back of his neck. "Right, right. Sorry, won't happen again."

She laughed. "Will too." And she darted into the bathroom, leaving her laughter in the air behind her.

As she undressed, she thought of him, all tall and thin and easy on the eyes, oh so innocent at a distance, with eyes full of terrible pain. She thought of how trouble came racing after him, pulling itself out of every dark corner of the universe, everywhere they looked, and landing, oh so often in their laps. She wondered where it was this time, and found herself hoping for a rare opportunity to finally rest.

He settled down on the little love seat until Rose came back. She deserved a rest, his pink and yellow human, she deserved a break from his dangerous, destructive lifestyle. And, if coming to a small, screwed up colony world and living with rabid illogic for a few days was all that was required to give it to her, he was more than willing to be as insane and hyperactive as the rest of them.

He sometimes wondered why she did it. Occasionally, he even wondered why he did it. Then there were moments like today, when she looked at him with those bright brown eyes and smiled, knowing him so thoroughly, sharing with him so deeply, and he wondered why he'd never done it before.

She emerged from the bathroom again, this time wearing nothing but a soft, brightly patterned towel, and he felt his hearts stop. His voice sounded breathless in his ears as he shouted "Rose!" indignantly.

"What?" she said, with equal indignity. "You've seen it before - spying on me in my room this morning, remember. Besides, I've got more on than that girl you were talking to at dinner."

"Well, yeah, alright," he agreed, averting his eyes and desperately forcing himself not to move from the sofa. "But she didn't... and you have... but there wasn't... and besides you're much... much more... no, I mean, she wasn't... no that's not right, yes it is... you have... Rose, you're wearing..."

She pulled something - probably a change of clothes he realized - from his coat pocket, and turned back into the bath room. He couldn't stop his eyes from following her, no matter how hard he tried, they just locked themselves on her hips and watched them sway hypnotically until she entered the bathroom. "Doctor, you're babbling again," she said sweetly and she closed the door behind her.

He sunk back into the cushions and tried to steady his breathing, even as his mind was tossing up all kinds of scenarios where he hadn't sat there babbling and protesting, but instead of sounding indignant had beckoned her close, had tossed that brightly colored towel aside, had satisfied his curiosity about her taste and gone on to satisfy... Stop.

He was a Time Lord. Those ideas in his head were weaving themselves into new universes as he thought them up. He was an old Time Lord. Well, not old by their lights, but old enough to be Rose's ancestor, and certainly old enough to know better than to imagine touching her, tainting her innocence. And he would too. He'd touch her body and wouldn't be able to stop himself touching her mind, and she'd know - really, truly know - what it was to be with him, and she'd run like Daleks on her tail, and he'd never, ever be happy again. It was better for him - probably better for the whole universe - if he merely took her hand and ran with her, as he always, always had, and never allowed any of the other touches his body so long had craved.

"Are you asleep, then?" she asked softly, coming up to him, touching his face. "Only you'll get a crick in your neck sleeping there, or you'll fall over." He lifted his head up and looked at her, tried to smile. "And if you try to sleep on this sofa, you'll be miserable."

He nodded, then shook his head. "I really don't need to sleep, Rose."

"Were you thinking about them, again?" she asked.

"No. Not really." He did smile this time, and reached up and took her hand. "I was thinking about you actually."

"Well, you just looked like you were being tortured. I figured it was either your past or my mum." She tried to make a joke of it, tried to sound light hearted, but the humor was really lost on them both.

"Just worried, Rose. You know me. It's quiet here." He gave her his best manic grin and and adventure hero impersonation while he said, "Too quiet."

She smiled, and brushed back his hair with her hand. "C'mon. 'Sa big bed. You can kip with me if you promise not to snore."

He told himself it was to avoid hurting her, reminded himself it had nothing whatever to do with his personal desire to get close to her at all, as he rose from the loveseat and pulled off his coat, jacket, and loud dress shirt. The plain cotton undershirt would be fine to sleep in and the trousers would simply have to do. He hadn't thought they'd stay this long, but he wanted her to be happy. He managed another joke. "Time Lords don't snore," he said with the enormous, haughty dignity that had once governed all Gallifrey.

"Right," she said, with all the sarcasm that had more than once brought that haughty dignity to its knees.

She settled into the big, round bed, snickering a bit about the size, and lay on her side, waiting for him. He curled up next to her, trying for off-putting at the same time as friendly calm. "I am a bit tired," he confessed.

"S'all that running about you do. Mucks with your biological clock, I bet, and you Time Lords probably have a worse one than we mere humans do." She turned on to her back then, and froze.

"What is it?" he asked, and rolled over and looked up.

They both burst into peals of laughter at the sight of their own reflections. Then, as suddenly as it started, the laughter stopped. The picture they made was quite breath-taking, and he couldn't really laugh at a thing of beauty, even if it included his own reflection.

Above him, the mirror Rose's hand reached out, and he felt her hand thread into his own and smiled. He turned to his side and looked at her, wanting to tell her everything. She had turned too, as he had, and was looking into his eyes. He squeezed her hand tight and raised it to his lips, then closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep.


	7. Sinking Feeling

Things continued quiet through a day spent shopping and laughing and eating funnel cakes in the village square. Funnel cakes, he thought, were obviously a gift from deities who loved mankind. He told Rose as much and she nodded and laughed at him, powdered sugar on her blouse and in her hair, sweetness clinging in a little bit of glaze to her pink, perfect lips. He actually groaned aloud as she laughed, but it was a bit of perfect clarity and perfect joy, and therefore, couldn't last. He didn't know when it would be over, when the TARDIS would be ready to let them leave, but they were enjoying the little respite despite the constant assault of illogic everywhere.  


There was a band on the green playing old music and it made Rose's eyes light up, the age of the music, the sound of it. There was a crowd of on-lookers, including the green-haired young man and the half-dressed girl from last night, though they seemed to be more interested in the people than in the music which Rose was enjoying enormously.

The Doctor smiled and waved at them, relieved the young man had found himself an escort before they stirred up trouble. "Probably been a long week. These festivals are lots of fun, but they probably take up a lot of the time these people would normally spend goofing off or whatever it is they do."

"Thought they said they never did anything if it wasn't fun," she reminded him, some conversation they had heard last night coming to mind.

"Probably not, but you know as well as I do that different people have different definitions of fun."

"Sure. 'Let's go blow up an evil factory, overthrow three dictatorships, pester Queen Victoria, get banished from your home planet, and then head back to Bristol for tea. Sounds like fun, eh, Rose?'" She even affected his accent as she said this, taking his hand and swinging him into a brief little dance around the square.

He lifted her up as she tried to waltz with him, both hands around her waist, spinning as the sound of some Earth group he'd never heard of played along. "Do you want to leave, then?" he asked. "I'm sure we can find something more disastrous to do elsewhere."

"I'm looking for something in mauve," she sang, to the tune they were playing, with her own words. "Something that's awful and left unresolved..."

"Oooh, good rhyme," he laughed. "C'mon, we need to go get ready for the party, don't we?"

So they headed back toward the castle, waving the little passes they'd been given that morning. The Doctor stopped just inside the door, his eyes very wide. "Suddenly, I've the feeling I missed something."

"What?" asked Rose, looking up at him with that baffled expression in her eyes, her head to the side and her shoulders set back to show that she was going into whatever-it-was with him.

"Something doesn't feel right," he muttered, looking every which a way and finding nothing.

"Oooh," she said, all teasingly amazed. "Your senses are tingling."

He laughed out loud at this and knew she would have bolted and ran if not for the chain she held in her fist. As it was, she was edging out of his reach as he stalked her, and when he made a quick swipe at her, she did run, though not so fast as to cause him any discomfort.

"We're going to keep this thing on you," she exclaimed, as they rounded a corner into the main gardens. "This way, I'll never have to hear another 'Rose, you just run off screaming stupid while I deal with the icky monsters with my almighty gob.'"

This time he caught her in his arms and pulled her close. She giggled and struggled half-heartedly and tried to tickle him while he tried to catch her hands. Then, suddenly, he had them pinned and above her head, and her thigh was up around his hip, while she supported most of her weight on one foot. Their faces were barely an inch apart. Her eyes went wide and dark, and he stared into them, the dark brown pools that would probably always seem a little golden for the rest of her life. The moment froze and eternity wove through them, everything that ever was, or would be, seeming to rest on whether he raised his head or lowered it. He stood there, in shock, holding her hands in one of his own, holding her weight now with one hand that had mysteriously managed to place itself along the back of her thigh on bare skin where her skirt had hitched up. Time stopped.

The sound of a clearing throat broke the spell and it was all the Doctor could do not to turn around and deal with the polite interruption with his fist. They jumped away from each other as though repelled by magnets, Rose straightening her skirt with one hand, her hair with the other. "Yes?" the Doctor demanded.

"We were wondering, Your Highness, if you and your friend wanted to join the game?"

He paused for a moment, crushing a hand through his hair and catching his breath, pointedly not looking at his companion.

"What game?" she asked and reached for his hand, closing hers tightly around it.

Relief coursed through him. She wasn't going to hate him for the awkward moment. That was a great relief, quite apart from the screaming frustration in his head of wanting to kiss her so much.

"Sink," the polite little gentleman informed them enthusiastically.

The Doctor grinned. "Sink's a great game, Rose. You go around finding stuff and naming it and trying to get it to sink into a specified body of water."

"What, so I grab this rock and name it a rock and then dunk it?" She gazed up at him with those huge eyes laughing at him. "And that's fun, is it?"

"No no no," he said, the grin growing broader as the Gallifreyan equivalent of adrenaline redirected itself through his veins and threatened to turn him totally manic. "You grab a rock. No, make it this rock, it's a lot bigger, and you say 'I dub this rock the bad guys!' And then you take it and you find water." He ran across the garden to the large ornamental fountain in the center of it. "And then you chuck it in!" he yelled and threw the rock into the fountain. "Hey, Rose, I sank the bad guys."

"Would your friends like to play?" the old man asked.

Rose and the Doctor looked around and saw the strange pair of green-hair and half-dressed coming up the path. "Come join us!" he invited loudly. "We're playing Sink!"

Green-hair introduced himself as Tiff, and the girl as Yesple. As they turned to the game – finding things to sink and tossing them in – it became apparent very quickly that Tiff and Yesple had no idea what they were doing. Now, Rose having no idea was one thing, but these two claimed they came from the smaller continent. They should know how to play Sink, the Doctor was sure, and certainly seemed to be going to a lot of trouble to seem like they knew what they were doing.

Yesple seemed to be trying to make friends with Rose, not an easy task when Rose was too busy giggling with the silly antics of the Doctor trying to trap Tiff into admitting what was going on. They played maybe three rounds, with Tiff and Yesple seeming utterly uncreative against Rose's sinking of a teenage boyfriend and the Doctor's rather hilarious – to himself and Rose anyway – sinking of the Titanic.

"Always knew you were responsible for that," she said with a grin as they walked up to their suite to change.

"Now tell me, Rose Tyler, what did you make of that?"

"What? Sink or the two space invanders?"

"Space invaders?" he demanded, startled. "Are you sure?"

She shook her head. "Nah, but you gotta admit they were acting very weird, even for a place like this. Didn't seem to be having any fun at all, either, and that's just not right here, is it? Everyone makes a great show of having fun even if they're bored out of their minds. And the questions she kept asking me!"

He held the lurid suite door open for her. "Really? What sort of questions?"

"Oh, if you always did 'this', whatever that was – an' if I thought you oughtn't – she said oughtn't, not me – be doing something more important." Rose sighed. "You don't think they recognized you, did they? More Last of the Time Lords rubbish?"

"Nah," he dismissed immediately. "Well, maybe. Well, I dunno. Maybe not. Oh, I hope not, these people are mostly peaceful. They're not up for a bunch of stupid alien plotting."

"No doubt," she agreed, shaking her head, and now a little worried. "Think I'll go get changed. Is it ok if I wear your coat again?"

"Please feel free," he replied loftily, trying not to let on how much it fascinated him to see her wandering about in his clothes.

"Great. Be out in a few." She snatched the patchwork coat off the peg and ducked into the bathroom, leaving him alone to pace and worry.


	8. Dances with Wolf

"Know what we need? A dance."

"The Polyfather's supposed to be putting in an appearance soon, Rose. I thought you wanted to meet him."

"What the heck kind of title is a 'Polyfather' anyway?" she asked quietly, tugging him across the floor as slowly as if he weighed a ton, trying to drag him toward the dance floor. She couldn't bring herself to use the collar, not when he was trusting her to hold onto it and him, and had been so polite about it. So she had resorted to dragging the reluctant Time Lord by his arm.

"It was the title assumed by Malaclypse the Younger, who started the Discordian religion back on Earth before you were born. He was either a nut or a genius, I never did ask him, and apparently he got his grand revelation in a Bowling Alley. The thing I always liked about these people is that there's never any mention of resorting to any sort of violence or forced conversion in any of their rites, and never any type of conformity required, even amongst themselves. The marriage custom was probably necessary when they built their own colony, as was the elevation of the Polyfather, but honestly, you've never met a nicer bunch of radical free-thinkers than Mal-2 and his friends."

They had finally reached the dance floor – only a few feet away from where he had originally started his lecture. It had taken Rose that long to drag her reluctant companion. She had no idea how she was going to get him to dance. He looked down at her, that far away look in his eyes, and she realized he probably wasn't even paying attention to her except in that vague way he sometimes used to use in his last incarnation, when he was thinking.

"Oh," she said. "I didn't realize it was a religion."

"Yep," he said, popping the 'p'. "They have saints and everything. Yesple and Tiff aren't here," he added.

"I hadn't seen them," she agreed.

"Anyway, it started as a religion, disguised as a joke. Or a joke disguised as a religion. Even Mal-2 never seemed certain about that. Their saints are very entertaining. Saint Tibb is a giant cockroach, Malaclypse the Elder was apparently the first carrier of a 'The End is Nigh' placard, and there's the Emperor of the United States."

She started at this. She'd hardly been paying him any attention, this time, staring enviously at all the ladies dancing so close to their attentive partners. "There wasn't an Emperor of the United States," she said. "I know some history, Doctor, just because I don't have any A-levels doesn't mean you can…"

"I'll take you to San Francisco and you can meet him," the Doctor interrupted, and shook his head.

Rose sighed. "If you say so. When is it? After my time, I suppose?"

"Nope. Around 1868, I suppose would be a good time."

"Ok, now I know you're yanking my chain," she said, still wondering how she was going to get him to dance.

"Ye of little faith," he said and, before she could even guess what had happened, he caught her hand in his, locking the other on her waist, and swept her across the dance floor in an elegant, fast waltz. "Once we figure out what's going on here, we'll go meet Norton the First, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. He even proposed to your favorite little Empress."

"Really!" Rose grinned as they twirled past their startled fellow dancers. "What'd she say!"

"No one knows," he said. "You can ask him. Just make sure not to tell him she banished us from the planet. They were in correspondence for several years."

He kept her at a formal distance for the rest of the fast song, but pulled her close for the next song. She was just thinking about resting her head on his arm when she caught sight of something green out of the corner of her eyes.

The Doctor had apparently felt her tense, because he looked down at her, then around them sharply. "What is it?" he whispered.

"Just saw Tiff. He just snuck down that corridor that's supposed to be guarded. Yesple's still there, distracting the guards.

"Tell you what, Rose. You go distract Yesple, and I'll go see if I can't catch our green-haired friend."

"But what about this?" she asked, jingling the chain she'd stuck in his jacket pocket while they'd been dancing.

He sighed. "Alright, we'll go over there, you talk to her and then casually drop the chain. I'll go on up the corridor."

"Right," she said. "No problem." She pulled the chain back out of his pocket and held it in her hand again, giving him a single, sad-eyed glance. "Don't think I'll ever get used to this thing. Know it wouldn't restrict most of these people, but it does seem to restrict you."

"I don't mind, Rose," he said and looked down at her, his eyes boring a hole into her. "Not so long as it's you."

There it was again, that burning, hungry look, those millimeters between their faces, those breathless milliseconds between them and a perfect, timeless kiss. She felt fire singing in her blood, felt her heart begin to race, felt her breath catch. The Doctor suddenly grinned and spun her off the dance floor. "C'mon," he said, sounding a little breathless himself, "let's move.

Of course he wasn't breathless. Those weren't double hearts throbbing sharply against her chest, she told herself. He didn't have the slightest idea what he was doing to her. How could he?

They walked over to the guard, who was alone this time. "Hello," said the Doctor, "did you see a man with green hair waltz down here as if he owned the place?"

"No, your Highness, I hadn't. No one can go through here without my knowledge. Did you need something?"

"No, just could've sworn I saw something. Do you mind if I go check?"

"Not at all," the guard said, and stepped out of their way.

They headed down the corridor and, once they were out of earshot of the guard, stopped. "Ok, that was weird," he said.

"Maybe it's something to do with why everyone here calls you Highness?" she said.

"Hope so. Otherwise, he's not a very good guard, is he?" He glanced around at the four forks in the corridor in front of them. "Look, we're going to have to split up. You take the right, there, and I'll go down this one. Meet back here in five minutes, and we'll try the next two. If you find anything that shouldn't be here, scream. I realize it's out of character, but some times it works."

Rose walked down the corridor, passing several open rooms, stopping to check each one, and discovering nothing more than that the strange architecture was standard for every room in the place. So, apparently, was strange furniture, and a bathroom painted in a thoroughly disquieting shade of Pepto Bismol™ pink. She didn't think even her mother would like that place. But although she saw many paintings that looked like play school drawings, she didn't see even one green hair any where she looked.

So the blow to the back of her head that sent her tumbling silently into darkness took her completely by surprise.

The Doctor moved rapidly down the corridor, watching the sonic screwdriver for any blip of activity. He knew that Tiff and Yesple didn't belong on Malaclypse, but it seemed they were entirely too human to register on the screwdriver as anything else. He frowned and ducked into the first room he came to, one that looked like an enormous conference room. There were chairs with paperwork piled on them, charts, graphs, all the evidence of hard work being done and meetings being held. He studied the graphs for a few moments, distracted, but pleased to see that they indicated an age of success for the planet.

Meanwhile, his mind was going over the possibilities of what the two visitors meant by wandering into the corridors of the royal apartments. Nothing good came up, but nothing definitive, either. He'd just have to catch them and ask them.

A soft 'snick' and a sudden sharp pain in his neck made him stop. He realized he should have amended that to include the possibility of them catching him first as the whole world went white, wobbly, and then black.


	9. Grand Theft Time Lord

When Rose came to, she was alone. There were stars at the edge of her vision, and a headache throbbing in the base of her skull, but a quick look at the nearby paintings led her to conclude that she'd merely been cold-cocked and left alone. A quick glance at a watch she'd found in the patchwork coat pocket earlier told her that she'd only been down about ten minutes. This also made her realize that the coat had been stolen.

She stumbled to her feet and, despite the Doctor's wishes, avoided screaming because that would alert her attackers that she was awake again. She wanted to sneak up and return the favor if at all possible.

She started back to the corridor they'd first entered by, trying to be as quick but as silent as she could. The Doctor wasn't there, nor did he seem to be down his corridor at a quick glance. She considered her options and decided that the guards had been very kind to her and the Doctor and they might just help her find him if he'd been kidnapped. With that thought in mind, she turned back toward the entrance with every intention of turning the palace upside down to shake it and see what fell out.

When the Doctor came to, he realized he was propped up in an alcove in the Great Hall. He kept his eyes closed, listening intently to see what was going on. His time sense told him he hadn't been down more than a few minutes. Stupid people didn't know who they were messing with, if they'd used a human drug on a Time Lord. So they couldn't be after a Time Lord. He kept his head lolling to the side to give himself time to figure out who they thought they had captured.

"How the hell are we going to get him out of here?" demanded Tiff.

"The claim he was drunk seemed to have worked well to get past those guards. You keep your hair covered, though."

"I'm in charge, Danika, and I wasn't asking you," he snapped. "This planet and their backward ways are starting to rub off on you, girl, and you need to mind your place."

"Sorry, sir," she muttered, and the Doctor could detect a slight trace of interesting rebellion in her voice. "But I can use the coat you stole from that girl and try to pretend I'm his little friend. No one will notice, will they?"

"Fine, but hurry, I don't know how long she'll be out."

"Sir, I don't mean to ignore my place, but you're not usually this sloppy."

"We only had one dose of the sedative." He sighed heavily and hauled the Doctor's arm around his waist. The Doctor went limp in such a way as to make it very difficult for the man, putting his full weight on him heavily.

The Time Lord heard the light twinkle of the chain and realized that Yesple – not her real name, apparently – was now carrying the chain that connected him to Rose. Great, he thought sarcastically, I really have been stolen.

As they dragged him, he did everything he could to slow them down without letting them know he was awake. He considered how long Rose would be unconscious and what she would do when she woke to find him gone. He decided there was no force on any planet that had managed to separate them yet, and this wasn't going to start it. He would let them get far enough that other people would notice and then he would bolt.

The flaw in that plan turned out to be that he didn't know exactly where he was, though the sound of voices told him he hadn't been taken far. He stretched out his senses a little – a small Time Lord trick that was very useful when one needed to get some information that one didn't have. The sound of voices got sharper, and then louder still as they dragged him closer to the party.

Then, quite suddenly, he heard the voice he'd been desperate for since he regained consciousness. Rose was calling him. "Doctor, where are you?" she shouted.

His captors gasped and tensed. He grinned broadly and sprang away from them, startling them into freezing completely. Unfortunately, Yesple had her hand on that chain. "I'm here, Rose!" he shouted back. "Over here!"

Every head in the room swung toward them. The orchestra stopped playing and the dancers froze. Tiff leaned over and hissed instructions in Yesple's ear. "Don't you dare drop that chain, girl! Hold him tight." He must have thought the Doctor couldn't hear them.

She nodded and wrapped the chain in her fist tightly. "How'd he wake up, though?" she demanded in soft tones as Rose raced over to them.

"Must've been a faulty batch," he said around a soft snarl. "You have your orders! Hold him."

"Yes, sir," she sighed.

Meanwhile, the Doctor knew that there was about to be a really big scene. He doubted the two erstwhile kidnappers knew that, though. And Rose didn't know, either, so that was going to present a problem. He sighed as she finally fought her way through the crowd and steeled himself to do something he had always tried not to do, especially with Rose.

Rose stiffened as she felt a very strange twitch in her head. I don't have time for a headache now, she thought. Get the Doctor free, first.

" _I'd appreciate it if you would,_ " his voice replied. She looked at him standing there, the two aliens watching him with their heads covered in ornamental scarves and the girl wearing his coat and holding his chain. She didn't think she'd seen his lips move.

" _Mine,_ " she thought, a visceral, angry, instinctive thing that wasn't really speech.

" _Oh, Rose,_ " he replied, his voice sounding awed and… no, he _felt_ awed, and she _knew_ it. She looked at him sharply, knowing for certain this time that she hadn't seen his lips move. He was staring at her intently, his eyes burning.

" _Are you in my head?_ " she asked herself silently. " _Doctor?_ "

" _No choice,_ " his voice replied. " _I'm being careful just to stay right here. I'm trying not to peek, I promise._ "

" _Thanks. You might see some very… human things in here._ " She felt shaky and his thought in her head was as comforting, as calming as if he had taken her in his arms and folded her into one of those breath-taking hugs that always made her want to… " _Not gonna finish that thought,_ " she told herself.

" _I quite liked it,_ " he replied, slyly, the sense of flirtation so much stronger than it had ever been.

" _Maybe later,_ " she answered in the same flirting tones and wondered how she was keeping from giggling aloud. " _What do I do now?_ "

" _Call Yesple – her real name is apparently Danika – a thief. Be as loud and accusatory as you can. All the Tyler fury you can manage._ " There was a sudden image in her head of an enormous, scary looking alien cowering on its knees before her mother's wrath. It was harder not to giggle this time.

She took a deep breath and concentrated on how worried and angry she had felt when she woke up. "You little thief!" she yelled. "You stole him. He is mine and I want him back." Yesple and Tiff just gaped at her, while the crowd moved to surround them.

" _Sorry, but you have to… um… well, just a light slap, please. Don't Jackie Tyler her into oblivion. She's just acting on orders, you know._ "

Rose nodded and stepped forward, slapping the girl lightly on the cheek. Tiff reached up to grab her hand as she completed the gesture, but several men stepped from the crowd and restrained him.

"Give him back," she demanded with the Doctor's prompting. "Now!"

Tiff was shaking his head while the perplexed Yesple looked at him with confusion and no little fury. "No," Yesple said. "He is mine, now."

"I don't want to be yours!" the Doctor said. "I belong to Rose Tyler!"

"I…" Yesple looked at Tiff who was now free from the arms holding him. He shook his head again, more firmly this time. "No, I can't let him go," said Yesple.

The Doctor heard her whisper "Sorry" under her breath and conveyed this fact to Rose. " _Now what do I do?_ " she asked.

"Then there must be a challenge!" said Rose as the Doctor told her the words. "Summon an adjudicator. She is a thief and I will prove it by contest!"

"What in the name of Eris's pink knickers is going on in here?" demanded a familiar voice. Rose's head whipped around and so did the Doctor's. "I try to throw a party," the voice continued, "and we get a damned committee meeting. Aren't you people supposed to be having fun!?"

"Sorry, Polyfather," said the guard who had let them into the Royal wing earlier, "it's just that there's about to be a cat fight."

" _Cat fight?_ " thought Rose, indignantly, even as Yesple bristled.

" _When in Rome?_ " suggested the Doctor. " _It sounded like an official title, so I think we'll just go with it._ "

"Really," said the Polyfather, sounding utterly thrilled. "Oooh, I want to adjudicate! And who are the contestants?"

The crowd parted between the little group and the Polyfather. Rose looked at the young man with his white and gold robes and then back at the Doctor, with his jaw hanging from its hinge and swinging in the breeze. She raised her hands, rubbed her eyes, and looked again. No, it was still exactly the same.

The Polyfather of Malaclypse was apparently the Doctor's identical twin.


	10. Polyjuiced Polyfather

" _Doctor,_ " Rose thought, desperately, horribly afraid, " _are we about to be swamped with Reapers?_ "

The Doctor soothed her trembling little form with the image of himself wrapping her in a warm blanket in her own room in her own bed in the TARDIS. " _No,_ " he whispered in her mind. " _It's all fine. Even a Time Lord can run into a doppelganger. No trace of the Imprintur on him._ "

" _Imprintur?_ " she questioned.

This evoked thoughts of the Vortex, its seething golden light shining with all the promise and all the potential of the entire history of the Universe. Rose was filled with awe and a sense of strange purpose. The Doctor thought that was odd for a moment, but remembered that she'd seen something very similar before. He closed down the thought completely, wondering idly if something as simple as a memory could awaken the time goddess who created herself as Rose Tyler.

" _Look at his eyes,_ " he suggested, drawing her away from the awful chasm of her almost-memory. Rose did exactly as he suggested and studied the huge, merry brown eyes watching them with no little amusement and a great deal of calculation. She realized that, although these eyes were those of one accustomed to power and weary from the weight of it, there was something missing.

She turned and compared them. There was a sparkle in the Doctor's eyes, the suggestion of Eternity, the hazy hint of eons, the half idea that these eyes could change color, shape, anything at any given second and remain the same. She saw something she had never ever seen before there, something truly alien and utterly, unmistakably powerful as well. She looked into his eyes and saw him, just him, always him, and so completely beyond her that she could never ever really touch him.

The feeling that rushed over her should have been xenophobia. The Doctor knew that. She saw something that only a few of his companions had ever seen and it always made them bolt and run. Only two of them had tried to stay after seeing it and only one had actually done so. But Rose, Rose's mind flowed over him with feelings so scrambled and confused and delighted that he was utterly staggered by it. Not one of those feelings, not one, was fear. But quite a few of them were possessive, and one of them was a firm conviction. She was only human, she could never truly touch him, but for as long as she drew breath, she would try.

It was the strangest, most poignant moment in his entire life. This was the girl who did impossible things, who had defied everything either of them had ever known or understood just so she could return to die by his side. He separated himself from her abruptly, before his love for her came crashing through his barriers and crushed them both.

And all this, this amazing, world-shattering, titanic moment had taken place in exactly that, one brief moment, the span of a few small heart beats. He brought himself under strict control and reached out for her again, because he could see the tears starting to pour unchecked down her face. " _Oh, Rose, my Rose,_ " he thought, " _don't cry._ "

" _They probably will think I'm crying 'cause she stole you. Don't worry about it._ " She paused. " _My Doctor._ "

Abruptly, the magical moment came to an end, with the sound of the Polyfather laughing. "Oh, you do get yourself into the most ridiculous fixes, don't you?" he said. "Well, Rose Tyler, you're the injured party, and you've been challenged. You get to pick the contest. Oh, please, make it something entertaining. I've been bored to tears, you see, tears." He snapped his fingers and the guards ignored him studiously. "Ah, bugger, are we gonna do this again? Someone get his chain, please. Goddess knows there's enough going on here without her chivvying off with the stolen loot."

Tiff reached for the chain, but a priestess appeared abruptly from the outskirts of the party, wearing another of those elegant white and gold robes. The Doctor had to stop himself from gaping at her, because she was another doppelganger, the memory of a woman long dead. He didn't even have to look for the imprintur to see that she wasn't who she looked like, because she was grinning ear to ear, and if he had ever seen more than a simple smile crack that beautiful, haughty face, he'd probably passed out from shock.

Of course, the planet wasn't done dealing out the shocks to him yet. The priestess gently removed his chain from Yesple's suddenly slack hand and cinched it to a belt at her waist, not holding it, because he wasn't property, the sign indicating clearly to anyone who could read it that he was currently under the protection of the goddess. "The Priestess Fred will guard the goods," announced the Polyfather. "Royal goods, no doubt."

The Doctor was interrupted from the shock of Romana's first face on a woman called Fred by Rose's voice whimpering in his mind. " _No A-levels, can't very well play 'Name that Intergalactic Threat', no doubt she's as good as I am at gymnastics, no chance in a chess match – can't leave it to chance at all. Please, Doctor, what do I do!?_ "

" _You could sing,_ " he suggested, calling forth the memory of her singing in the shower while clamping his barriers down hard on the memory of everything that followed. " _Something pretty, light, entertaining, or heart-rending, whatever you like. I got the idea that they don't have a lot of fun where they're from, so singing for entertainment may be completely beyond them._ "

" _But I'm not that good,_ " she whimpered.

" _You're the best at everything, Rose,_ " he assured her. " _Besides, you put your soul in your singing. Everyone will know._ "

" _Ok, what do you suggest. I can't sing with an orchestra, I've never done before. Just in the shower, and in the Tiki Bar on Cameroon._ " She was staring at the priestess all through this, having clearly noticed the Doctor's start of recognition.

" _She's not who she looks like, either,_ " he assured her. " _It's weird._ "

" _It's like something out of Harry Potter,_ " she agreed. " _You know, poly-whatsits potion and people turning into other people._ "

" _I imagine the Polyjuice potion would kill you if you tried to use an alien's hair, though,_ " the Doctor replied thoughtfully. " _Completely rewriting your DNA structure is probably bad even with magic. Probably one of the reasons for Voldemort's… nevermind, you have to announce your decision._ "

" _Oh, right._ " She smiled and observed to herself that he even babbled when thinking as she turned to face Yesple. A moment of concentration and the fury light was back in her eyes. "I challenge you to a singing contest."

Yesple's face went completely white as Rose smirked at her triumphantly. The Polyfather was clapping behind them. "Fantastic!" he shouted, and Rose turned again to gape at him. "Thirty minutes, everyone. We'll meet back here after the ladies have had time to warm up and they can enthrall us with their charming songs." He grinned the Doctor's grin, his all-too human eyes sparkling as he turned them on the Doctor.

"And I can have a quick family reunion while we wait." He turned and went through an ornate door by the dais.

One of the violinists from the Orchestra came over to take Rose and Yesple off somewhere to practice. The Doctor nodded and waved at her and she gave him a nervous little half wave back as she followed. Tiff moved to go with them, but the guards stepped up and surrounded him, somehow aware that he was the cause of the whole mess.

The Priestess jangled the chain cinched at her waist. "He said we're supposed to go with him, remember?" she said sharply. The crowd parted easily for her and they walked through, while the party goers turned back to whatever they were doing before this disaster started. The Doctor stopped and turned to watch Rose disappear into a room at the back of the hall. He was sure she would be safe, but he couldn't help worrying about her all the same.

There was a sharp jerk against his neck, and then a quick, quiet curse from the priestess in front of him. She stopped walking and sighed heavily. "I swear to Eris, Thete, you're going to be the death of us."

The Doctor rounded on her, wild eyed and astonished, and striving desperately to tell himself he didn't hear that name.


	11. Talking to Yourself

"Well?" said Priestess Fred. "Are you coming, Thete?"

The Doctor was honestly surprised one of his hearts hadn't stopped. "Sorry?"

"This is ridiculous, Thete. I've never seen you so distracted by a pretty lady before. Rho is waiting, and he is supposed to be important, yeah?" Nevermind, both of his hearts should have stopped.

"Ok, but just so you know, I can't tell if this is chaos, coincidence, or some particularly brutal application of Sod's Law." He followed her into the room where the Polyfather was waiting, apparently trying his best to get a really nasty wine stain on his robes.

"Bloody robes won't absorb a damned thing," he said. Then, he grinned that manic grin and the Doctor suddenly wondered why Rose only slapped him occasionally.

"Hello," he said, "I'm the Doctor."

"Changed your title again?" asked Fred.

"Goddess, Thete, can't you stick to one or six?" asked the Polyfather, rolling his eyes.

"Nooo," he said, so far beyond confused that he was expecting pink Daleks to come smashing through the doors shouting "OBFUSCATE!" It was a particularly bizarre nightmare he had from time to time when he'd had pizza for dinner. And this whole situation was obviously a preliminary. "Usually, anyone who knows me to call me Thete knows I've always been the Doctor," he added.

Rho looked at him, fully confused now, and Fred, apparently tired of whatever it was she perceived to be going on threw her hands into the air and stormed away from him, chucking the chain back at his head.

"Now you've upset her, and you still haven't told us where you found your new friend."

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," he replied. If they were going to be obscure and difficult and not explain how they knew a nickname no one living could possibly know, then he was going to be just as stubborn and obdurate. "Her mother is a ferocious beast. Attacked me with the Almighty Jackie Slap of Doom, and her ex-boyfriend used to be the village idiot."

" _I heard that!_ " shrieked Rose's voice in his head, leaving it ringing while the Priestess and the Polyfather laughed.

" _Oops,_ " he replied. He had forgotten to disconnect them in the confusion.

" _And what's this 'Thete' business?_ " she added.

" _Have you picked a song yet?_ " he asked to distract her.

" _Yep,_ " she replied quite smugly, imitating him perfectly.

"Malaclypse to Theodore," said the Polyfather, sounding quite cross. "Back to the planet with us, please."

"Oh, sorry," he said, and then he realized. "Oh! You're saying Theed! I thought… well, nevermind what I thought. You were starting to worry me, you know!" He would have continued his relieved tirade, but was interrupted by Priestess Fred thumping him on the head.

"Honestly, Theed, you're really taking this too far, this time. What's the matter with you?"

"You act like you've never seen us before," the Polyfather added, "and I happen to know that's not the case."

"I'm not Theodore," he said.

"That's it!" snapped the Priestess. "Let me murder him, Rho, no one will notice, you just pretend to be him and you, it's not like you didn't do it all the time to Mother."

"I'm not your brother," he said, hands in front of his chest in an attempt at a placating gesture.

"Are you sure?" said the Polyfather, obviously disbelieving him, but attempting to humor him. "Only I have an identical twin brother, and you are identical. And you look like my twin. So…"

The Doctor thrust his wrist out. "Check my pulses," he offered. "Look, I dunno why I look like you or your brother or whatever, but I'm not. I'm not from this planet. My stubborn ship was being ridiculous and Rose wanted to see the place, and then she wanted to come to the party, and turned that pout thing she does on me and you could fell whole armies with that thing, so I gave in, what else was I going to do? And here I am, looking like you, or you looking like me, and your sister looking like an old friend of mine, and calling herself Fred, like my friend wanted to do. Your name is almost the same as another old friend of mine and Theed sounds just like what everyone used to call me. Don't you people know there's a limit on the number of mad coincidences you can have in one place?"

"Nope," assured the Polyfather quite calmly while Fred stepped toward him cautiously. "Last Galactic Census ruled that the volume of random coincidence per capita is almost 40 percent higher on Malaclypse than anywhere else in the charted spaces."

Fred had caught his hand and started, probably at how cool it was, then checked his pulses. Her eyes widened. "He has two hearts, Rho," she said. "Don't think Theed does, although I wouldn't put it past him."

"So that's why everyone's been calling me your highness," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. "We didn't mean to impersonate royalty."

The Polyfather waved him off. "Oh this is just brilliant!" He laughed merrily, and the Doctor was taken completely aback. "I have an alien twin!" the Polyfather exclaimed and threw his arms around the Doctor, hugging him tightly and almost lifting him off his feet.

The Doctor felt as if two or three planets had been lifted off his shoulders, and also as if he was being tackle-hugged by Jackie, only without the snogging. He looked at Priestess Fred, almost expecting to find her glaring at him suspiciously. But she wasn't even looking at him. "All I can say is I'm sorry," she said. "I feel so silly dragging a total stranger around and not even realizing it."

"How were you supposed to know?" the Doctor asked. "Besides, I doubt if you'll ever meet anyone stranger than me to drag around. As I said, I'm the Doctor. And your name must be short for Fredrica or something?" She nodded. "And... Robert?" he guessed.

"Yep," replied the Polyfather, popping exactly the same as he always did.

The Doctor breathed a series of Gallifreyan profanities, involving Rassilon, Omega, a purple nightie, a herd of sheep, and a god-awful amount of Shobogan ale. "I have an alien twin," he muttered while the Polyfather grinned at him. He paused a moment and let the wonder roll over him before realizing that there really were more important things to handle at the moment. "Ok, so the two lunatics who tried to steal me were apparently trying to kidnap you instead. I don't condone such things on general principle."

"I don't either," Ro said and his eyes went flat. "It's that Tiff person, I suppose? I've had them followed since they turned up here the other night. The girl seems sensible enough. At least I think. She may be dangerous, too." Ro flopped into his chair gracelessly and sighed. "Well, we can't tell anyone you're not Theed. No one will believe it. I almost didn't and I was born with the crazy bugger. He was expected, and when you turned up claiming to want to freeze Jell-o, it made perfect sense to everyone so we just went with it to see what you would come up with this time. So. Your girl. She's pretty. Can she sing?"

"Her name is Rose Tyler. She can sing just fine, so I'm sure she'll be able to reclaim me. It's what we do with Tiff after the fact that concerns me."

"Where are you from, Alien Twin?" asked the Polyfather.

"Just 'Doctor' is fine - 'Alien Twin' sounds strange and we shouldn't get into bad habits in front of everyone else. I'm from everywhere."

"Generally speaking," said the priestess, "when the Goddess manifests she comes in female form. But you..." She smiled kindly. "You're Chaos on legs all by yourself."

"What gives you that idea?" he asked, wondering if he should be worried.

"That's my gift," said Fred with a smile. "I'm considered the current representation until the Goddess shows manifest again. She always appears."

"Thanks, I think. I may be an agent of Chaos, it wouldn't surprise me. But I don't want to get too distracted from the matter at hand, you know, because Ro will have trouble if I do."

"Tiff's a nuisance, all right," agreed the Polyfather. "Still, the search for the manifestation is important, our tantamount religious duty. I say duty, but I suppose it's a privilege? Responsibility? Whatever. We have to expect the Goddess when she turns up, but I don't think there's a record of her turning up as a man, and honestly, it's a little weird to think of, even if I have to admit it would be beyond entertaining. I have no idea how that would work, though, honestly. Fred?"

The Doctor grinned at the Polyfather, beginning to wonder if they weren't actually connected in some way other than mere appearance. The idea of someone who looked and behaved in a manner similar to himself was quite strange, but perched gracelessly in the chair right in front of him all the same. It was almost eerie to listen to the Polyfather ramble - it reminded him of those beknighted occasions when he ran into himself in other incarnations.

"Ro, he's right. Deal with the strangers and we'll try to keep him in the background so we don't have that problem."

"Well, our law doesn't allow for imprisonment per se unless he's really dangerous. Generally, we evict them from the planet if they just won't get along, but somehow, I don't think he's going to be safe to evict."

"No, probably not," the Doctor agreed. "I want to know where he's from and what he's up to before I unleash him on the Universe. Besides, I'm not sure if Danika would be safe with him, either."

The Polyfather stared at him. "Danika... that name..."

Fred was frowning, too, as she poured them all glasses of wine. "That's a very familiar name, I think. Who is she?"

"Danika is apparently Yesple's real name."

"That is an appalling pun. I could have them arrested for language abuse."

"No you couldn't," said Fred with a sigh. "Look, why don't we see how the contest goes and then we'll decide what to do about green hair and his punishment."

"It's getting a little Piers Anthony in here with the puns," the Doctor agreed. "C'mon, you can hear my Rose sing."


	12. Family Problems

Yesple stood in the spot light, twitching. The orchestra played a few notes for her and she began her song, some piece from a 31st century musical that must have survived on the colony that was her home. Her voice was soft and pretty, thready but sweet. She made her way through it cautiously, singing the words as she knew them - somewhat different from the original but still charming. The Doctor beamed with relief. He had been half-afraid that, with his usual luck, the half-dressed, frightened girl would turn out to be the reincarnation of Maria Callas or something.

The audience applauded politely but the Doctor and the Polyfather grinned at each other in relief as Rose took the spotlight, his coat back on her shoulders making her look rather small. The room grew still and silent. She held herself as she had that day when she came flowing from the TARDIS, all wonder and light, and destroyed the Daleks once and for all. She met his eyes and smiled as the twinkling strains of some modern incarnation of a piano played her intro. Then Rose, his perfect, magnificent Rose, opened her mouth to meet her cue.

" _You must remember this..._ " she began and he gasped. Brandy of the dam, he remembered saying once, and her voice was like dark honey bubbling up from solid rock. It wove a spell inside his head, wreathed through him like wisps of time had all his life. He had still forgotten to break the connection, apparently, because he could feel her passion burning inside him. She loved to sing, he realized, and was delighted to sing such a song for such a reason.

She sang as if her soul was on fire.

The orchestra loved it, that much was obvious immediately. The trumpets caressed her voice, the brassy buzz of the alto sax was that jazz typical warble of smoke around her. He had to step back from the connection, close the doors in his head and let the glory of her drift in the night by her voice alone.

" _As time goes by..._ " she crooned for a final time, and he felt as though he'd stopped breathing. Behind him, the crowd burst into raucous applause.

"Well, I'm afraid that's just too easy," said the Polyfather. "Rose Tyler, the man is yours as he ever was."

" _Never was..._ " Rose's soft voice in his head amended. The sadness that descended from that thought was not hers alone, but she would never know. Rose, alone in her own skull for her entire twenty one years, would not have the knowledge to distinguish the shared sorrow from personal sorrow.

It was disconcerting - he couldn't break the link. Try as he might - and he did try - every single time, the connection remained inside him, wreathing through his skull like witch-light, insinuating itself. He knew why he couldn't break it, but it was unnerving enough to discover such a thing without the added burden of trying to hide the discovery.

"Where are they?" demanded Priestess Fred, and broke his concentration. He blinked in surprise at the interruption and turned around sharply toward where Yesple had been waiting for the Polyfather's judgement. She had disappeared.

He whipped his head around, eyes darting everywhere at once. "He's gone, too," the Doctor said, finding no sign of the green hair anywhere in the crowd.

"Bugger!" shouted the Polyfather, and rounded on his guards. "Dustin, get a troop together and find them. Nobody harms the girl, but I want him dragged back here, quickly."

"Let me go with them," the Doctor interrupted urgently. "I can help."

"Not without me, you don't," snapped Rose, snatching up the end of the chain from Fred's outstretched hand. "I want to go with you."

He sighed. Rose had to be his priority, and what he was doing to her mind by existing inside her head, much more important than two annoying strangers who seemed to be mostly harmless despite their plots. But what if they were dangerous? Could they hurt the planet?

"You know what?" the Polyfather said, sternly. "You can't do anything until they're back here, Theed, so I think our safest course of action is to keep you and I both guarded. Fred and Rose can help with that." He smiled at Rose kindly. "Dear sister, we're all going to retire to the royal suite. I'd like you two to come with me, of course."

"Oh," Rose said softly, shocked to be consulted. "Sure, you're probably right."

And so they did, leaving the party with cheering Discordians at their backs. "What was that?" Rose demanded of the Doctor as soon as they were out of earshot of the crowd.

He sighed and looked at the guards surrounding them. There was no choice, so he whispered the answer into her thoughts. " _He has a brother. His brother's keeper would be addressed by him as his sister. So there you have it, Dame Rose, you're also the sister of the ruler of this planet. So's Fred, by the way._ "

" _I thought this was just for the emergency,_ " she thought with some surprise.

" _Yes, but I haven't had time to break the connection properly._ " He slammed another door closed over the lie, but she still looked at him suspiciously.

They took one of the forks Rose and the Doctor hadn't explored earlier. At the end, they came up to a huge, polished rosewood door. The guards threw it open sharply, split up and half of them went inside while the others waited with Ro, the Doctor, Rose, and Fred. As soon as they gave an all clear, the royal party went inside and the guards took up positions at the door. Fred stayed outside for a moment to issue several sharp orders and then came inside and closed the door behind her.

"Rose, can you check and bolt the windows?" asked Fred. "I'll go with you, and the Doctor and Ro can get the doors in here. Ro, you also need to call Theed - he's in danger just from matching the rest of you."

"Thanks, Fred," the Polyfather said sarcastically from what looked like a communications unit on the wall. "I hadn't thought of that." He rolled his eyes, while the Doctor went over to the enormous, ornately painted french doors at the back of the room and began doing up a series of latches with the sonic screwdriver.

Rose watched him for a moment with amused wonder. He turned and smiled back at her tenderly, then tossed the screwdriver to her. "Setting 88. Locks locks."

She laughed and turned with Fred into the first of several rooms. "So, what's it like to have twin brothers?" she asked.

"It wouldn't be too weird if they weren't identical," Fred replied. "That's how we mistook the Doctor for Theed - they all three act the same. When they both figured out about the kidnapping, their eyes snapped the same way and everything. The only difference is, your Doctor looks more terrifying than either of them, somehow, and I've seen Ro look like a monster before."

"What?" Rose asked, not liking that at all.

They went into the adjoining bathroom, which had a purple glass shower compartment in it, along with purple everything else, and locked up the windows there, too. "We had a peace treaty with the Grayfaces. We call them Grayfaces, I couldn't pronounce what they called themselves. But after Ro was chosen as successor, the Polyfather at the time called him to a conference they were having." They went through four rooms as she talked, a bedroom, two conference rooms and another bathroom.

"Unfortunately, we weren't told they'd had a civil war and their new government wasn't at all disposed toward peace with us. They assassinated the Polyfather and his brother and held Ro captive. To this day, I don't know how he escaped but however he did it, it was terrible. We had the place ringed with soldiers but couldn't get in there without endangering him. Besides, what kind of soldiers can peace-loving people be? On the third morning..." She stopped talking as they cut through the main room into a set of bedrooms on the other side.

As Rose touched the window locks with the screwdriver, Fred continued her story, looking over her shoulder occasionally to make sure Ro wasn't listening. Rose knew the Doctor was - he was in her head and hearing every word as she did. She smiled to herself, thinking how much easier this was than each of them having part of the information only. If the Doctor knew everything she learned immediately, his incredible mind could work that much faster on the problem.

"On the third morning, Theed managed to get inside. Well, they're identical twins, and that kind of confusion always helps." She looked off into the sky outside the last window, the room Rose assumed belonged to Ro, since it was enormous. "At noon, we were getting very close to panicking, thinking we'd lost all of them. That's why identical twins are always chosen. Ro and Theed were so young, you know, only 16, and Ro wasn't even supposed to take office until he was 25."

Her face looked haunted. "It's hard, you know - when they appoint you successor, they appoint your whole family. So here I was, with the goddess manifest and the three high priestesses who were supposed to have had years to train me, and I was in charge of this whole thing because we knew the Polyfather was dead. I was so frightened. How do you give an order to kill a room full of strangers and your own brothers, Rose? Do you know?"

Rose shook her hand and put her hand on Fred's trembling shoulder. "At three o'clock, when I had finally decided that they were all dead, and I had no choice but to give the order, there was this enormous explosion at the back of the building and something shot off into space. The ground was shaking so hard we all fell." She threw her arms around Rose, and started crying. "There was dust everywhere, and everything was like a nightmare. And then the building went up in flames. And Ro comes stalking out of the fire, with Theed in his arms. It looked like the whole world was burning. Theed weighs every bit as much as he does, but he had his back straight and his head high - he looked like some kind of god, Rose. We were all too scared to move as he ran toward us."

Rose held the older woman as she cried, guiding her onto the edge of the bed to sit down. She wondered how long the priestess had been holding the fear and the awe inside her. After the tears had calmed and the woman had stopped shaking, she looked at Rose with wonder and enormous gratitude, convincing her that no one had ever talked to Fred about it before.

She confirmed this. "Ro never ever mentions it. Theed knows some things but he won't talk about it, either, except he did mention something about a girl called Danika once, I think. And since I didn't have a born sister, I didn't have anyone I could talk to about this until now. None of Theed's partners have ever been my sister, you see." She laughed half-heartedly and ran a hand over her face. "But the Doctor brought you and since he's Ro's twin, too, you're my sister and besides." She smiled up at Rose sheepishly. "I can look into your eyes and tell you know exactly what it was like."

Rose nodded. "I always wanted a sister," she said with a kind, happy smile. "Let's go get some tea and talk to the boys. Maybe we can figure out what the other alien menace is up to between us."

"Ro's angry, you know. I can tell just by looking at him."

Rose nodded. "So's the Doctor, and I don't even have to look at him to know that. He'll fix everything, Fred. You don't have to worry anymore. We're here and we always take care of our family."


	13. Brother Bother

"Tell me about your history with these people," the Doctor instructed quietly.  


The flippant smile had dropped off the Polyfather's face as he turned away from the screen. "I can't reach Theed. I don't know where he is. They may already have him. I have to do something."

"Stop," the Doctor ordered, pulling out a talent from his collection that he hadn't used since his seventh incarnation. "I will help you," he continued, his voice full of mesmeric power, "but you have to tell me now what you know about them."

Ro nodded and gestured to the couch. They took seats side by side, Ro sitting close to him and putting his feet up. "I think they must be - or Tiff must be - one of the Greyfaces. They're from a planet in the next system and we are technically at war with them. They attacked us years ago and killed my predecessor and his twin. That's why I've been Polyfather for ten years now instead of one. A Polyfather rules from twenty-five to fifty. If he dies in that time, his brother is elevated. But the girl is important. Because she seems so familiar to me, and if she is who I think she is, she's the goddess manifest and I have to get her back."

"How can you recognize the goddess manifest?" the Doctor asked, having let go the mesmerism once Ro had calmed down.

"There are five signs," Ro replied. "Everyone knows them when they hear them, but it's impossible for someone to duplicate them deliberately. It's hard to explain, since you aren't Discordian, but the rules for each manifestation are different..." He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, another familiar gesture. "When I was sixteen, I was captured and held prisoner by the Greyfaces and one of their prisoners helped me escape. Her name was Danika. I helped her get back to her planet and she helped me beat the Greyfaces in return."

"I see," the Doctor said and his hand went into his hair as he concentrated. "And you think it might be the same Danika."

"Yes," the Polyfather agreed. "And Theed was there to bear witness to all five signs, so he can testify that she's the goddess manifest. I've decided to send two more forces to Theed's house on the smaller continent so they can find him and protect him if he's there. They don't need to know about this. I'm thrilled at having another brother, but I want the born one protected."

"I agree completely," the Doctor said. "You might try calling him at his office or..."

"You're a genius," Ro said quickly and bounced up to try the communication system again.

Rose and Fred walked in then, Fred looking quite watery and worried. "Have you spoken to him yet?" she asked the Doctor, then did a quick double take. "Sorry. Goddess you two look alike." She grinned. "I'm making some tea, would you like a glass?"

"Glass?" the Doctor questioned, quite shocked.

"Sure, iced tea, you know, sweet, served extremely cold?"

Rose smiled at him and the picture of his own face with a cough-syrup grimace popped into his head. He rolled his eyes at her. "Can I get mine hot?" he asked.

"Sure, no problem. Rose?"

"I'll try it iced," she said. "I'll try anything once." And another image popped in this time, his own idea, of Rose, toe-dancing through a park.

"Not funny," she whispered. "What's going on, Doctor?" She sat on the sofa and curled up next to him, then began fiddling with the collar around his neck. It came loose finally and he rolled his neck and shoulders.

"That was a close call, tonight. Whatever they injected me with was a human sedative - it would have knocked you out for hours. Fortunately for me, I only needed a few minutes to get it out of my system, but I'm very, very tired as a result. I want to talk to them quickly and then I think I need a nap."

"Really, the Doctor sleeping two nights in a row," she bubbled, teasingly. "The world is coming to an end."

"Oh, I doubt that," he replied. "Although it depends on your definition. The word 'armageddon' means the end of life as you know it, and I assure you life as they know it will probably be changed by this incident."

"I hope it won't change them, too much. They're very nice, you know, except for the previous armageddon, if we're using your definition."

"Oh, that." He smiled at her wistfully and took her hand, looking into her eyes. "I don't want you to think it's necessary to have me in your head, Rose. It's very sweet of you to think about the benefits, but I don't believe you've considered that there are negatives to it as well. For example, I can normally tell that your heart rate goes up when I do this." He ran his free hand along the side of her face and watched her eyes grow huge as she tilted her head into his touch. "But right now, I can also feel very well what it's doing to you, physiologically."

He paused for a moment, expecting her to jump up and run away. But she was tired and very comfortable with him, so all the panic he expected didn't happen. Instead, she curled in closer. "That's very nice, isn't it?" he asked, surprising himself completely by enjoying the warm sensation of what his touch was doing to her body.

"Very," she agreed, and her tongue poked through her teeth as she grinned up at him.

A diversion seemed to be in order. "You asked earlier why I was so alarmed by that name."

"I was wondering. I couldn't tell they were saying 'Theed' either, but... what is so alarming about 'Thete'? I got the impression you don't hear it a lot?"

"I never heard it a lot, not since I was in school back... there." The word 'Gallifrey' hovered unspoken between them. He never said it in his previous incarnation, never even thought it if he could avoid it. He was better now, closer to sane when he thought about what he had done, but it still wasn't time yet. "They gave me a nickname. It's hard to explain why, there are a hundred little things about our culture that don't make sense unless you were raised in that culture."

"Hum?" she asked, still drifting a little.

Priestess Fred came out with the tea at last and Rose sat up to get herself a glass. The Doctor reached for his cup, but knew he'd need to add more than the usual amount of cream. "It's like... well, you humans and your love of dancing. It started with Mr. Spock and since then, your media is perfectly capable of creating a sex symbol out of anyone."

"Oh, you mean how Jabba the Hut had Princess Leia in less clothes than... nevermind, I'm getting as bad as you," Rose said with a laugh. "But I did wonder how he could possibly find her sexy - shouldn't he find other giant slugs sexy instead?"

The Doctor laughed merrily and sipped at the tea. "This is good," he told Fred, who had walked over to join Ro at the communications screen. "Any luck?"

"Yes," Fred assured him, returning to sit in the recliner across from them. "They're arguing now." The smile she gave him was relieved and pleased him more than he would have thought possible from a person he hadn't even known until a few hours ago. It was almost as if Fred and her two brothers were becoming important to him, personally, which amused him as much as it surprised him.

"Fantastic," said Rose, and drank her tea. "I really like this stuff. I can't believe we don't have this on Earth."

"You do," said the Doctor. "American southeast. And I was explaining about cultural differences. No one who isn't human understands why there's so many of you like that. Of course, I imagine they haven't met Jack yet, either."

Rose giggled. "True. I miss him."

"So do I," the Doctor agreed with her. "Of course, I promise you Fred and Ro are glad he's not here."

"Who's that?" Ro asked as he joined them.

"Jack, our friend, used to travel with us. He'll make love to anyone he meets if he can, not to mention anything sentient that swims, flies, or doesn't think he tastes like chicken."

"He did try to seduce those cannibals on Tia Corita," Rose replied sleepily.

The Doctor took her glass from her hand so she wouldn't drop it. "Is Theed safe?" he asked.

"Yes," Ro replied and drained the glass he'd been carrying. "He'll be here tomorrow. I called his office like you suggested and got his hotel number. Good thing, too, the idiot was traveling unguarded and I've told him before he isn't allowed to do that."

"Well, hopefully, we'll have Theed, Tiff, you, and me all here tomorrow and we can sort this out. I need sleep and Rose has already dropped off. You two should get some rest as well."

"You can have Theed's room - it's the one next to mine."

The Doctor smiled and lifted Rose into his arms, carrying her into the indicated room. He gently removed his coat from her shoulders and closed the door behind him, hanging the coat up. Then, he laid her down carefully on the bed, pulled off her shoes, shucked his jacket, trainers and dress shirt, then laid down next to her.

He knew without a doubt that he should undo the connection before he slept, but fighting the drug had made him so tired and the emotional upheaval had made it worse. The gentle presence of her innocent slumber was a comfortable buzz in the back of his mind. He firmly closed all the doors in his head and locked every one of the dangerous ones. He tucked the covers in gently around Rose and curled up at her side, closing his eyes. He was so tired. He could pay for this indulgent little sin in the morning.


	14. Make Lemonade?

There was a drowsy haze over his mind as he woke, and he was blissfully unaware of where he was. The girl in his arms shivered and made a soft moan as his hands smoothed over her bare torso, so he did it again just to enjoy the thrill of that soft, delightful sound. She was curled into his body, spoon fashion, and he felt absolutely nothing of reality except her warm, pliable form against him.

His hand glided of its own volition upward to caress the swell of her breast, feeling her nipple harden against the thin shirt she wore. The sensation intrigued him, so he slipped his hand under the shirt and tried again, this time finding the delicate lace of a bra in his way. Still, there was tender skin to touch and the lace made it more enticing. He teased the hard nipple with a sensitive finger, then let it trace the line of thin lace to her other breast. On the way, he found a small clasp and released it quickly, letting his hand wander now inside the bra, tracing her bare, excited skin with fascination. The noise she made this time sent his blood racing through his veins and he lowered his hand to her hips. He pulled her denim clad bottom closer to his own hips, and she moved closer still, her half-aware motion tearing a startled gasp from his lips.

"Rose," he whispered, and with the sound of her name, awareness came as well.

He chanced another touch, and reached up to move her blonde locks away from her face. She seemed to be mostly asleep, her eyes closed and a blissful smile on her face. He brushed his finger across her lips and she stirred slightly.

Well, this was going to be a disaster of embarrassment, whatever he did. He didn't dare move, lest he wake her, and he couldn't not move, because of...

She wriggled her hips again, apparently trying to get comfortable, and sent all the heat in the room to pool in his groin. ...that.

He tried to angle away from her carefully, but his legs were completely tangled in the sheets, and she cuddled closer. "Rose," he whispered again, urgently this time, even as his body was relaying all sorts of titillating suggestions to his brain about what to do next.

"Humm?" she murmured. "Doctor?"

That did not help. Nor did the way her small hand reached back and touched his hip, investigating. It didn't even matter that they were both fully clothed - his brain had supplied thirty-six ways to rectify that issue. Her hand snaked back to his bottom and then back up to his hip. Thirty-seven. "Doctor," she said, decisively, contented, and arched her back into his chest. The sound of his name, said with such longing and happiness, almost jettisoned two years of strict control.

"Rose," he said, his voice husky and wanting even in his own ears, "it's time to wake up now."

"Don't want to," she pouted and firmly turned her face towards the pillow.

He grinned, even though the desperate ache throughout his body was getting to the point of pain. He could hear his hearts thundering in his ears. Since she didn't want to wake, he decided to let her sleep for a few more minutes and concentrated on getting his body back under control.

He had to stop his breathing for a minute because the smell of her was heavy in their bed and in the air around them. Once he had his hearts beating at a pace more physiologically normal for his kind, he tried to work out how to get loose from the sheets. She let out a soft, tender sigh and moved against him again. All that control he had worked for abruptly evaporated. He let out a growl of frustration and desire and her eyes snapped open.

"Doctor," she asked, "are you ok?"

"Fine," he murmured and tried one last time to separate their bodies before she noticed.

She looked at him quizzically for a moment and apparently noticed his blush because she moved tentatively, curiously, trying to see what was wrong. Her eyes widened and she gasped. He felt his face go up in flames.

Time froze as she looked at him. He could still feel her in his head, which was probably how he had gotten confused this morning in the first place. The emotions running through her head were racing like the two of them toward the TARDIS. She was transfixed, she was nervous, she was aroused, she was embarrassed - for him, not herself. She was wishing to turn around and kiss him.

"Have to do something about that," he said and rolled away from her, to the enormous frustration of both of them, taking all the sheets with him as he went. "I'm going to go get a shower and then we're going to get out of each other's heads."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, thinking he was angry.

"Rose," he interrupted, almost strangling with the erotic visions pummeling his brain. "Please don't. I'm not sorry, I should be, but I'm not... and the..." He stood up gingerly and walked with his back to her toward the bathroom. "I am sorry for embarrassing you, and for..." He sighed and jerked his hand through his hair, turning to look at her with all the longing he could bear to let her see in his eyes. "Perfectly normal biophysiological responses."

Then he turned and ducked into the small adjoining bathroom, hoping the shower had a setting that involved pack ice.

Rose sat up in the bed, completely dumbfounded. She had been dreaming, as she sometimes did, and her foggy, early morning mind hadn't distinguished the difference between the dream of being touched by him and the reality. But god, what a reality. Her body was thrumming to the elegant rhythm of his hearts. Her mind was racing as she tried to decide whether something was wrong or something was right. She put this memory behind one of the doors in her head, the one with the two of them dancing in the TARDIS behind it, and closed the door. It was only after she stood up, realizing he had put her to bed fully clothed, that she also realized that one article of clothing had gotten quite out of place while she slept.

She heard an annoyed yelp from behind the bathroom door and got the sensation of cold water sluicing over her body, even though she was alone. Rose smirked, then grimaced as her mind suggested she needed to join him in that shower and her body replied only if he turned up the temperature. She shook herself abruptly, adjusted her clothes, and went out to find some caffeine.

Fred was sitting at a desk in the common area when she came in. "I've laid some clothes out for you - take your pick," the priestess offered. "And there's some knickers here that I had them bring up from the market. Theed's things should fit the Doctor - he always has new things here he never wears, so the Doctor's welcome to them."

"Thank you so much!" she said, feeling almost overwhelmed at the kindness. How often had they landed on a planet where the leaders practically stole her clothes, and these ones were giving her some. "The Doctor and I have to take a few minutes this morning, and then we'll come in. Is Theed here yet?"

"He called earlier - he'll be here in an hour, and Ro will probably sleep a little longer - he had a rough night."

"Any luck with Tiff?"

"No. But they did manage to capture Yesple. They're bringing her to me as soon as I call for her. I'm thinking of talking to her before I bring her to Ro. What do you think?"

"Might be a good idea. But you might want to take the Doctor or Theed or both of them with you."

"Humm. You're probably right. I'll call Theed before Ro wakes up, if you can tell the Doctor?"

"Yeah. How're we going to pull the switch, though? The Doctor's got his collar he has to wear, right?"

"We'll just put it on Ro. He's often absent, and everyone thinks the Doctor's Theed." She offered Rose a cheeky grin. "This is even more fun than with just the twins."

Rose laughed and poured herself a glass of iced tea, selected a vivid blue dress from Fred's offerings, one that should clash perfectly with the Doctor's coat, picked up the delicate knickers and returned to their room, closing the door gently behind her.

The Doctor was singing in the shower this time. His voice was a rich, moody tenor that quite snatched her breath away, especially when she realized he was just finishing the song she had been singing last night. She had heard him sing before, in his previous incarnation and, while his voice was dark and appealing, the song hadn't been anything but a drunken joke. There was also that time on the spaceship, but she'd long since grimly edited that from her memory.

Now, it was completely enticing.

The sounds of the water cutting off startled her as she tried to put all of this out of her mind. In her haste, she dropped the clothes she was carrying as she tried not to fumble her glass.

She set the glass on a nearby end table just as the Doctor entered the room with a towel cinched around his waist and a wicked grin on his lips. She gasped. "But..." she said.

He smiled. "Just returning the favor, my Rose," he said with a smile. "Those are pretty."

She looked down to see the pastel panties in her hand and blushed vividly crimson. When he continued to stand there and smile at her, mischief in his blazing eyes, she pinched her own arm, just to be sure she was awake. He laughed, a soft, sultry sound, and turned to rifle through the wardrobe for the clothes Fred had mentioned. Again, the advantages of the link were becoming apparent.

He took whatever he found that pleased him and ducked back into the bathroom while Rose stood there, dumbfounded. When he returned, in an impossibly short amount of time, he was dressed and toweling his hair dry. He looked at her now, all contrite and apologetic.

"I am sorry about that. It was very..."

She cut him off before he could get started on a good tirade with a wave of her hand and a tender smile. "Doctor, apologize to people who regret - not to me."

Then she felt it in her head. The world was suddenly spinning under her feet, a little slower than the Earth did when he took her hand, and his presence was filling up her mind with a weary, aching longing. He wanted to kiss her, she knew it now. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to keep breathing, but he didn't dare.

Oh, God, didn't he know... She clicked the doors shut again and he looked at her, surprised, blinking. "You're getting good at that," he said as his thoughts mostly disentangled from hers. "And if we're going to go with Fred's plan - which might be a very good idea since Ro may do something foolish if we don't - then maybe it would be best if... can you tolerate it a little longer?"

"Tolerate it? Doctor, it's the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced in my life. I can understand if you don't want... I'm just a stupid ape and..." she was cut off by a wave of self-directed anger from him.

"If I ever happen to cross time lines and run into myself, I'm going to knock me stupid for ever saying such a thing to you. I was trying to keep you at a distance, but I was so alone..." He sighed. "I had to actually dose myself up with constant reminders to keep myself from..." He straightened the dark blazer he now wore with a sharp tug. "Well, nevermind, still gonna punch him. Let his head ring from something 'sides the Jackie Tyler slap. Just so you know, though, you're doing very very well with something completely outside of your ordinary frame of reference, and I am extremely impressed."

She blushed. "Thanks. But aren't I hurting you? You got caught up in my dream this morning, I know..."

"Hah!" he exclaimed and caught her in a quick hug. "How'd'ya know you didn't get caught in my dream?" He spun her around, his face inches from hers. "The question is, are you all right with this? I'll remove it immediately if it's bothering you. Privacy and all that, I know you're very concerned about that sort of thing."

"I have the TARDIS in my head all the time," Rose replied, staring at his lips with hungry curiosity. "What's one more powerful alien in my skull, if we're friends?"

He laughed and kissed her forehead. "You're brilliant, you know that?"

He drew away then and his face shifted rapidly from excited to disturbed. "I never did finish telling you last night, so before we go out there and see if we can't help our newly adopted family, I think I ought to do. I lost my name as a child - it's a strange concept to you, I know, and I can't explain all of it, even if I wanted to do, but understand that I was an orphan in the world where everyone's someone's family. They called me Theta Sigma at school - a number which doesn't actually mean anything useful in Gallifreyan and implied that I was nothing more than a number. Sort of 'Generic Little Timey #9200.'

"Then there's the Earth translation, which is painfully appropriate. Some Gallifreyan words - not necessarily my fault, not that I'd doubt it if it were - some of them wandered into very old Earth languages. So the translation in English is 'Death Solution' or some variation on that theme. It... it's painful to even think the words, and know... But now," he sighed and clutched tightly to her hand, "now, I..."

She caught his other hand and held it tight, even being so brave as to deliver a little kiss to the back of his knuckles. "Now you wish just one person remembered it."

He nodded and smiled at her, lost in her eyes and in her wonderful, compassionate smile. She would never know all the different ways she had saved his life, not just the obvious times, but the hundred times in between that he nearly died of his own grief or loneliness or anger. And now she knew the label before he found his name and now she was in his head as well as in his heart. "Go get a shower, Rose, we have lots of work to do."

As she walked away, he couldn't help but wonder if he would really be able to undo this in the end after all. It wasn't that he couldn't - obviously, he had that power. But he was beginning to believe that there was no force in the Universe strong enough to make him want to do it enough that he would succeed.


	15. A Bird in Hand

Before they set off on the mission, Fred insisted that the Doctor and Rose be properly converted to Discordianism, which ceremony she performed right there in the sitting room of the royal suite. They both stood, grinning and joking in the approved fashion throughout the entire, mercifully brief, ceremony. Fred told them quite smugly that they were lucky she had long since decided she didn't like having a bunch of nudists around her, since the initiates were traditionally naked. Rose found this particularly hilarious, while the Doctor found it just plain alarming.

Then they were introduced to Theed, who was smuggled in wearing the uniform of one of Fred's under-priests. He took one look at the Doctor and started laughing. "We keep this up, and we're going to come in five-packs," he said.

Rose muttered something that sounded like "Gave it tenant," but the Doctor couldn't make heads or tails of what she meant.

"So which of us is the oldest, now?" asked Theed cheerfully as he helped himself to a jelly baby from the bag the Doctor had found in the coat Rose was wearing.

"Technically, me," the Doctor said, to the bewilderment of all except Rose, "but I've looked like you for the least amount of time, so it doesn't make any difference."

"Good thing we know who the goddess manifest is, Ro, or that'd be weird."

"He's just an agent," Fred assured her brother.

"I think she's back," said Ro, bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly. "Fred has her kept at St. Josh's, so you and the Doctor are going with guards to interview her. You know what happened, so you can ask her."

Theed's face went abruptly cold. "Is she safe? The man with her - he didn't hurt her or cause her trouble?"

"I can't know that, Theed. But maybe this time, she'll change her mind."

"If she is your Danika," Theed said, "I owe her my life. I'll take care of her for you, Ro, I swear by the Goddess."

"Yes, yes," said Ro, obviously quite embarrassed by this show of serious emotion, "by the Goddess, at the Goddess, whatever you like."

Then they sat him down and explained the plan.

Theed wore Ro's white and gold robes, the Doctor, Theed's white and silver ones. "They're ceremonial," Theed explained as the Doctor pulled on the itchy collar. "Me, I wouldn't be caught alive in them if I could get away with it."

"Well, but yours have the better collar," the Doctor whined.

"Actually," said Ro, "I have the best collar right now." He grinned cheekily and tilted his head just so, so the Doctor's heavily jewelled collar caught the light and glittered at them. "It really is exquisite, and it fits me perfectly. Where'd you get it?"

"There's no telling," said Rose with a smile. "Absolutely no telling."

Only Rose looked relatively normal (at least for Malaclypse). She had on the blue dress and wore the Doctor's coat over it - the patchwork one, not the pinstriped. Fred was wearing full formal attire and looked as if she was wearing the night sky. "Dustin is going to escort us," Fred said. "He's been told what's going on, so he'll keep the head count right. It wouldn't do to fool everyone into thinking there's only two of you if we lose one of you."

At the door, she stopped and hugged Rose fiercely, even at the risk of rumpling her robes terribly. "I think I'll have yours done with silver stars instead of gold," she said. "I'm so glad I met you." Then she kissed Ro on the cheek and the three of them stepped out in the corridor.

"What was that about?" Rose asked after they had gone and she was Ro were being escorted out the front.

"Fred's always felt the absence of the goddess manifest or a sister of her own. It's hard enough being high priestess to the Goddess, but harder still to have to be the only high priestess. Our culture must seem so odd to you."

Rose laughed and put her hand on his arm. He felt like the Doctor, but there was none of the physical charge she always got when the Time Lord touched her. "Ro, I've been to planets that worship cheese and met people who believe their brothers are evil. I've been places where you can get burned at the stake for the color of your hair and seen people who lived and died without ever laughing even once. There are people in the Universe who hate everything and distrust everyone, and then there's Malaclypse. I love your planet, it's..." She grinned at him, as he smiled down at her appreciatively. "Fantastic."

"I just want you to know, Rose," said the Polyfather, doing so well at pretending to be her Doctor, even down to the way he said her name, "I think I really like having an alien twin. You two have brought more to my life by just existing than I ever would have thought possible. I agree with Fred completely. I'm so glad I met you - both of you."

St. Josh's cathedral was a tall, stately edifice, all painted with tiny, brightly colored murals. The murals combined at a distance to show the face of a wild-eyed woman, holding the world in her hand, blowing on it what looked like fairy dust. She held her other hand down, creating the illusion of the archway, shaped like a large, cutaway apple, resting in her open palm. A garden of wild flowers bloomed in riotous colors all around the central tower and, amidst the gardens, separate wings of the temple seemed to grow, painted in more flowers, blending in exquisitely.  
"Welcome to Saint Josh's," said Fred softly as she led them inside. The room was high vaulted and enormous, wide open and colored in a pattern remarkably reminiscent of the living vortex. It was dotted here and there with tall marble statues, but no statues like these had ever been seen on any world. There was Mal 2, holding a cup of coffee to his lips, looking as surprised as if someone had just frozen the world around him. There was Omar, a bowling ball resting on his knee, his feet propped on a very tacky looking chair. Largest of all was a statue of Joshua Norton, raving silently and perpetually at a pair of street mutts who looked at him in endless canine adoration.

A half dozen giggling little acolytes surrounded them quickly. "Welcome Polyfather!" they all sang out and danced around Theed. Then they twined around the Doctor's ankles and giggled at him as well. "Welcome, your Highness."

"Thank you," said Theed, with an obvious pretense of seriousness, then he laughed out loud and bent down until he was eye level with the children. He gathered them all close in a large hug and ruffled the hair of each child, his eyes sparkling the whole time.

With amusement, the Doctor handed them each a jelly baby, which they accepted with mock solemnity and then ran off to where ever tiny Discordians went. "That was perfect," Fred said through her laughter, "absolutely perfect."

The Doctor and Theed shot her identical smirks, which sent her off into a peal of giggles, rather like the children. "This is incredible," said Theed, and took the Doctor's hand. "C'mon, brother, we have work to do."

The paired novel sensations, of holding his own hand, and of being completely accepted almost staggered him. Even his own people, even his closest friends had never truly always accepted him and his ways. He silently thanked the TARDIS for bringing him to Malaclypse, even though he knew she would be insufferable about it.

But he couldn't help it. He felt like he was welcome, here, welcome in ways he hadn't been, even on Gallifrey. Then there was that beautiful, golden spark in the back of his mind, the warm, loving, brilliant presence that was Rose Tyler. He leaned on her without even thinking about it, taking comfort in the inclusive joy and constant companionship of her mind entwined with his.

Even as he, Theed, and Fred went down into the lower area of the temple, he knew he was in trouble.

Ro talked her into singing for the crowd again, just because he thought she was that good, and because he thought the Doctor would have been proud to show her off. "He wouldn't make me do this," she protested, quietly, but sternly.  
"Nonsense," Ro replied. "He'd do this." And he let his eyes go wide and soft and pleading, the full-blown puppy dog eyes. "And then he'd say 'Please, please, please, Rose." And he grinned at her with a devilish glitter in his eyes and winked at her. "And then you'd do it."

She laughed and slapped his arm. "You know you're bloody right. I don't get it."

"He's my brother," Ro assured her. "He may not have been born on the same world, but I just knew I could trust him the minute I laid eyes on him. Not just because he looks like me, either, if that's what you're thinking, because he doesn't, exactly, you know."

"Yeah, I do, but I didn't think you did."

"I can tell him and Theed apart at a glance now," Ro assured her in a whisper. "Go on, sing for us."

She sighed and, with a moment of thought, obliged him with an improvised rendition of some jazzy little number she'd picked up on some forgotten Starbase out in the backwaters in a place Jack had described as the stark epicenter of nowhere. The orchestra played along with her, following her lead with ease. There were other, better pieces she could have done, but she decided that she wouldn't want to sing them without the Doctor present.

It was as she was walking out of the light and taking the chain back from the lady guard who'd held it for her that she noticed the Doctor's conscious presence in her mind. She sent him a thought to let him know she missed him.

"Are you all right?" Ro asked. "You looked a little vacant."

"Just thinking," she admitted. "About the Doctor."

"You two seem very happy together," he said. "Why do you continue as friends when you both obviously want more?"

"It's complicated," she said. "You wouldn't even believe how complicated. Besides, he doesn't really want more, even if it looks like that some times."

"Not sure what you mean by that," Ro said. "But if he has anywhere near as much responsibility as I do, it makes sense, I suppose. I knew a girl once, before I met Danika, before I was chosen. I loved her at the time, but my task took me away from her. Besides," he added, in a slightly happier tone, "I think she was in love with Theed."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It might be a bit like that, yeah."

"Let's go into the garden," he said. "You can have time to think, and I can relax this pretense a bit."

"Used to all these people bowing and scraping at you?" she teased.

"Hah. There's a fine tradition on Malaclypse about that sort of thing. Generally speaking, most everybody is my loyal opposition, unless it's serious." He gently led her toward the door, careful to keep her at a polite but comfortable distance.

"Could you do that again in English?" she asked. He grinned, the Doctor's manic, ecstatic grin, and she felt her heart twist painfully at her Time Lord's absence.

"It means I'm used to them insulting me more than anything else."

Rose smiled, and brushed again by the impression of the Doctor in her mind, forcing herself not to cuddle up to it and distract him or allow herself to be distracted.

She knew she was in trouble. When this was all over, he would separate the connection, as he should, and she'd be alone in her own head again. It was something of a shock to realize that she didn't want that, anymore, no matter how important privacy had once seemed.

The Bowling Alley in the lower level of the Temple was positively brilliant. The Doctor watched with fascination as the faithful played their sets and "consulted their pineal glands", which appeared to involve everything from staring off into space to drinking heavily to debating philosophy like Socrates' disciples.  
They were led past this, and the pool hall off to one side, and into the area where the priests and priestesses were quartered. They were the most ornate priestly cells the Doctor had ever seen - each decorated with the eccentric tastes of the Discordians on full display. He thought Rose would rather like this, except maybe the room in which they had Yesple quartered.

She stepped out of the small, obnoxiously pink chamber, and smiled at them both, nodding politely at Fred. She'd been cleaned up and put into a proper set of Discordian robes, and her short hair had been washed so that the auburn showed through. She looked much better and healthier. "I'm sorry," she said to the Doctor, "I can't disobey Tiff."

"What's he using to control you?" the Doctor asked.

"Are you Danika?" Theed interrupted, looking like he knew the answer. "You've changed a lot."

Danika snorted bitterly. "I went home to a war, Theed, and I fought in it. And they finally captured me three days before the Procter's forces finally retook the government. They're holding me hostage. Or they were." She sighed. "It was terrible, Theed. Where's Ro? I'd..." She chewed her lip nervously. "I'd like to see him."

"How did you know?" Fred demanded, surprised. "They're bloody identical, for Goddess' sake."

Danika smiled. It was a very pretty smile, even though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "He doesn't have Ro's eyes, you know. I've seen them, I know what they look like."

Fred's eyes widened. "He was right, she is the goddess manifest." Fred bowed to her as though it was compulsive.

"What does that mean?" the Doctor asked, since the disguise seemed irrelevant.

"Technically, the goddess manifest is the girl who showed the presence of the goddess at the right time," said Theed. "And she did it. I was there, and I saw." His smile was decidedly sappy, and the Doctor dearly hoped he didn't actually look like that in front of Rose. She'd be able to see the romantic notions entirely too clearly if he did. "She and Ro belong together."

"I have a war to fight," Danika cautioned. "Ro understands that."

"So just because she can wear a sign that says 'Eris was here' she and Ro belong together?" The Doctor shook his head. "What do you think of that, Danika?"

She patted his arm. "If I didn't have a war to deal with, I wouldn't complain even a little."

The Time Lord grinned at her. "That is wonderful to hear, then. We'll have to see what we can do about your war. Now, how is Tiff controlling you?"

"They inserted an explosive chip in my neck. He has the control and if I don't help him get..." She teared up now, and the Doctor reached inside his robes to find the sonic screwdriver.

"This," he said with his manic grin, "is an easy fix." He ran the screwdriver over her and found the chip in her neck and a second in her arm. "Humm. Can't have that. One explosive and one tracking. Don't like that at all." He reset the screwdriver and, with two quick little whirs, disconnected both chips. "You'll want to have them out, of course, and I can do that later when we've caught up with Tiff."

"Oh, thank you," she said, and blinked up at him, bright green eyes filled to the brim with tears. "Who are you, anyway?"

"The Doctor," he replied and then, to his shock, heard an echo of his name, screaming in his head.

"Rose!" he shouted, and Theed whipped around to stare at him. "Rose, please... ROSE!"


	16. You, Again

The gun pointing at her head gave her the rather familiar sensation of being a little bit doomed. Still, she wouldn't have been as frightened if Tiff hadn't immediately turned it over her shoulder and shot down Ro's guards. Why had they come out here, she wondered. It seemed like such a stupid idea now, even though it had seemed brilliant at the time.  


The gun was back at her head now, and Tiff had his arm around her throat. "Where is she?" he demanded. "You've taken the girl, I want her back or I'll kill your girl in exchange."

Ro glared at him and she saw fury in his eyes. It was awful, nearly as dangerous as the Doctor's earth-shattering blaze, and she was beginning to wonder if there wasn't some mad sort of connection between the two. "Release her at once," Ro told him, "if you want to get out of this alive."

Tiff fired another shot, this time just two inches behind her head. That was enough and she reached into her mind, shrieking for the Doctor, calling for him, clinging to his presence with everything she was. She felt the desperation of his answering cry, felt him reach out to her, clutching her to him, his mind to hers, his strength to her fear.

All at once, the panic passed, leaving her shaking. The Doctor wasn't here, but Ro was and he was strong and brave and a leader of his people. And the Doctor was with her, and she was Rose Tyler, and she didn't panic, didn't scream and whinge and whimper. She had stared down Daleks - Tiff could fire energy bolts behind her head all day long but if he harmed one hair on her head, he would pay in worse than blood.

No, that last wasn't her thought, she realized, that was the Doctor's. Wherever he was, he had gone into that cold, steely, dauntless rage. He was coming for her. On the horizon, she heard thunder, and clouds rolled in overhead. She smiled, feeling slightly mad, but weren't the insane dangerous?

Tiff gave her a look that was top-filled with hatred, and maybe just a tiny sliver of fear. "G...get the restraints," he ordered Ro sharply.

The Polyfather did as he was told, all the time his gaze burning into Tiff's face. "You will regret this, I promise you," he said.

Tiff ignored him and snapped the dead guard's restraints onto Rose's wrists. He did this carefully and, with calculated movements, strung the end of the Polyfather's chain through one of the cuffs, all the while keeping the gun trained on Rose's head.

"Inside, now," he ordered.

He sent his captives in first, then shot the two guards waiting in the doorway. Ro swore at him fluently. "Silence," Tiff yelled as everyone in the courtroom screamed.

"I want the girl you captured brought to me immediately," Tiff ordered the guard captain who stood across from him, glaring at him with his hands held away from his sides. "You have half an hour to comply, or I kill the girl. One hour, and I'll kill your ruler."

"I'm not the ruler," Ro lied calmly.

"You're lying," Tiff shouted. "I've seen your face all over this useless world."

Rose snorted, feeling decidedly Doctor-like and willing to laugh in his face and smile down all the danger he represented. If this place was crazy and the little squit with the gun was not crazy, well, someone had to drive him mad in order to set him straight. "There's no tyranny in the state of confusion," she said whimsically. "He's the guide, not the ruler. And Theed here isn't either, are you?"

"Nope," Ro said, grinning at her, though his grin seemed a bit strained. "I'm the spare."

"I'll still kill you," Tiff roared and rounded on the guard. "Get the girl and bring her here, now."

"I can't do that," the guard said with a shrug.

Rose grinned. They were all going to go out of their ways to disturb Tiff as much as possible.

"Don't you understand what's happening, you blithering idiots?" demanded Tiff and fired a random shot into the air. "Do it, now!"

The guard shrugged and wandered out. The others stood there quietly, looking at him, just staring.

"Stop looking at me," the green-haired man ordered. "Sit down, face the wall."

"Which wall?" someone asked.

"Yes, because there are lots," Ro agreed.

"Any wall that doesn't put you facing this direction." Tiff swore colorfully, words that the TARDIS didn't translate and Ro didn't seem to know. Then, silence fell, and Rose found she was able to rely on the Doctor's perfect time sense to tick off the minutes.

After about five minutes, the silence seemed to get to their captor, because he started muttering, apparently to her. "I cannot wait to get off this ridiculous, backward planet. You people are all stupid, mad, and have no common sense."

"Common sense," Rose informed him calmly, "is what tells you the world is flat."

"And you're just insane," he said.

"Thank you," she said. "You want chips with that?"

"What?" he asked.

"I said, do you want chips with that? I know you're not deaf, unless you made yourself deaf with all that shouting, which I honestly wouldn't doubt. I'll say it five times, if you think it'll help. Five's a perfect number for anything, really."

He glared at her and waved the gun threateningly at her. She ignored him and sat in silence. After about fifteen minutes had passed, he looked back at her again. "What's taking so long?"

"The guard probably had to consult his pineal gland," she said. "We didn't exactly tell him where to go, did we?"

"But..." Tiff muttered, then his face tightened in anger. "Shut up, unless you want to die now."

"I wouldn't do that," Ro told him, his voice calm and absolutely in control of the situation.

"You wouldn't shut up either until I made you."

"You're not actually making me do anything."

Tiff delivered another shot, this one just missing singing Ro's hair. The small crowd of Discordian courtiers began a quiet chant to Eris.

Rose smiled reassuringly at Ro, and he winked back at her. In her mind, the Doctor's steady presence told her that he would be there very soon.

"Shut up that noise!" Tiff shouted, and fired a few shots over the heads of his prisoners and every which way around the room. He managed to hit the release catch on a small storage compartment, apparently, because something came tumbling out and started to fall on him. He ducked and rolled, and Rose moved quickly, hoping to get herself and Ro into a position where they could jump on him and disarm him.

However, it didn't happen like that, because Tiff came up with the weapon already firing and they had to do an awkward double roll just to get out of the way of his haphazard shots.

"What is all this?" he demanded, as he set it on fire and watched it burn merrily away.

"Looks like about five tons of flax," Rose replied with a shrug, and everyone in the room gasped. "You didn't have to destroy it. People use this stuff."

"I don't care!" he shouted, and then consulted his watch. "Anyway, your time's just about up."

She stood and glared at the invader, let her fury and frustration blaze in her eyes. Outside, the wind started roaring, and there was a sudden, violent light. It was punctuated by an enormous crack of thunder that shook the windows in their casements and brought a smile to Rose's face, just as Tiff stared at her, fear overwhelming the anger in his face.

"A storm's coming," she announced quietly, and met his eyes serenely, while Tiff pointed his gun at her and held it in trembling hands right under her nose.

*?*

The Doctor and Theed snuck over the back wall of the garden, getting drenched in the process, but ignoring the rain. "Rose is just through this door," the Doctor told his double. "We can go through here, as long as Fred gets the distraction going."

Fred had decided to enter through the front gates with her entire entourage, including the guards there to protect her and Danika. The small acolytes would cause the distraction, setting up a hymn of praise to the goddess manifest that would quickly be carried throughout the palace and the city and set everything into confusion.

"And Tiff?"

"He's got a gun on her, and he's not watching behind him because he thinks he secured the way. He didn't count on me being able to shut off his little parlor trick."

"I really, really hate that bastard," Theed said. "I could put up with a lot of things, but electrifying the palace walls to keep people out is just wrong."

"We're in full agreement there, but if he's hurt Rose or done more to Ro than charred his hair, he's going to wish it was just you that hated him."

Theed grinned maliciously and raised the stunner in his hand. "Sure you don't want one of these?"

"Yep. Never touch the things." The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and checked the setting, as the sound of the hymn started to echo around the broad courtyards and from over the wall. "Hold on, Rose," he whispered.

*?*

"Turn around," Tiff ordered Rose in a quiet voice.

"What's the matter? You're going to kill me. You should at least see it when I die."

"No," he said. "Turn around."

"No."

"I don't want to do it like this."

"Oh," she said. "Well then, stop."

Every Discordian in the room whipped around to look at her, and a loud chorus of the hymn they had heard coming from the grounds was suddenly shouted from the people at her feet. She looked at Ro, and he was white faced and grinning excitedly at the same time, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Then, behind them, there was an ominous crash of the heavy oak door being thrown open. Tiff turned to face the sound but wasn't quite fast enough as Theed and the Doctor came barreling through the archway. The sonic screwdriver whirred just as Tiff pulled the trigger on his gun, but it fizzed and sparked and then, with a sound like a dying dishwasher, started to shake in his hands.

Rose snatched it away and caught Ro's hand to pull him with her without choking him, then chucked the gun out the open doorway with all her might. She flung her hands over her ears and turned away, hip-checking the door shut behind her to provide them some protection. In the courtyard, the gun exploded just as she slammed the door, with an almighty boom and the sound of a small tree being ripped apart.

The Doctor had landed on Tiff and was holding him roughly with one arm pinned between them and the Doctor's knee in Tiff's back. Instead of stunning Tiff with the weapon he carried, Theed simply kicked the green-haired invader in the face. Tiff made a hoarse, gurgling noise and collapsed, motionless, to the floor.

The main doors were flung open and Fred stalked in, soaking wet and looking like vengeance made human. The priests and priestesses of Eris crowded in after her, still singing their hymn, and guiding Danika through the doors. Fred had draped the girl in a star-spangled green mantle before they came and, even drenched, Danika looked every inch the princess as she stood there among the bowing people of Malaclypse. She took in the unconscious prisoner and her distracted brothers with a quick, analytical glance and seemed to decide that her moment was right, for she stepped to their side of the room, Danika on her arm.

"Behold the Goddess, manifest in this woman, Danika," she announced. "Do her great honor, for the Goddess was with her in her great need and will be with her again. Hail Eris!"

"All Hail Discordia!" shouted her entourage.

The courtiers blinked at her, looking completely confused.

"Robert Twenty-third, Polyfather of Malaclypse," continued Fred, undeterred, "I bring you the goddess manifest. Will you take her to be your bride?"

"I will," said Theed, in his guise as the Polyfather, "with all my heart."

"But we've hit a bit of a snag," interrupted the real Polyfather.

"What?" said Fred, sounding not at all happy that her ceremony was interrupted. She stood there and glared openly at both her brothers and their adopted brother, and dripped at them, while her entourage tried to shake the water off of themselves.

"In the finest tradition of the multiplication of chaos," said Ro calmly, "we seem to have a second goddess manifest."

"What?" said Fred, again, this time looking as if she'd been clubbed by a frozen rabbit. Rose giggled at that idea in her head, and the Doctor looked down at her, smiling.

Ro lifted his hand and maneuvered it carefully around his chain, still attached to Rose's wrist. Then he pointed down at the top of Rose's blonde head.

"What?" the Doctor demanded loudly. Every eye in the room turned to him as he stood there, looking quite a lot like a thunder cloud.

On the floor between them, Tiff groaned loudly in the silence. The silence was broken when three identical voices, and Fred's as well, shouted "Take him away!"


	17. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Time

The sonic screwdriver made quick work of the cuffs on Rose's wrists as the guards dragged Tiff out. She ignored the chain altogether and flung herself at the Doctor, crying into his robes and clutching tightly to him. He wrapped his arms around her as Fred also dropped all pretense of ceremony and darted across the room toward them, dragging Danika behind her by the hand.

Cuddling a weeping Rose into the curve of his body, the Doctor looked over her head at the others. Danika and Ro looked at each other for several long, aching minutes and finally, tears streaming down his cheeks, Ro caught the slender red-haired girl in his arms and held her as though she might disappear if he let go. The Doctor was quite familiar with that sentiment.

"I'm feeling a bit left out," Theed pouted and then laughed as Fred bounced toward him and gave him an enormous kiss on the cheek. He hugged her tightly and swung her around. "Love you, mean it," he told her happily.

She snorted, then started laughing, and apparently couldn't stop. The Doctor felt Rose wiggling against him and he relaxed his hold on her, though he didn't even consider letting her go. She was giggling, her face all gloriously alight with happiness and wonder and that fundamental, brilliant joy that was Rose Tyler at her most magnificent.

She was so beautiful.

He lifted her up and spun her around. "Missed you, Rose," he told her breathlessly.

"Missed you, more," she replied and kissed him quickly.

It was too fast for him to be stunned or shocked or even amazed. It was almost too quick for him to even feel it, and he heard the lightning fast thought that she'd deny it if she had to do. He rolled his eyes and just held her closer.

The aged little priest who had interrupted them once before came over to interrupt again. "What is happening here, High Priestess?"

Fred flicked her thick, dark hair out of her face and sighed. "We are making a bit of a scene, aren't we?"

"Oh yeah," agreed Ro, a broad smirk on his handsome face. Theed and the Doctor matched the look exactly and the old priest chuckled. "This is our brother, Sir Hedrin," he introduced. "He's helping us."

"I wasn't aware your highness had another brother," said Hedrin, looking quite put out, as though his invitation had been lost in the mail.

"We weren't, either," said Theed. "He's our alien twin. He's called the Doctor."

"And this is Rose," the Doctor added, his arm around his companion tightening.

"Priestess Fred," said Hedrin seriously, "I expect we'd better take this conversation somewhere private. There are procedures."

"Right," agreed Ro, then raised his voice. "Guards, your brothers have given their lives in honoring their oaths to the people of Malaclypse. See that the traditional honors are arranged and the customary memorial for heros of the people made for five days time. Dustin, I'll want a full report this evening. If anyone is hurt, please have one of the priests help them to the Hospital. Otherwise, thank you for your strength in the crisis. We are all very proud of every one of you."

"Yeah," Rose agreed, "you were brilliant." Then she waved at them as the party of seven cut through to the hall into the royal apartments.

They took seats in a large, glittery conference room down a different corridor from the one the Doctor had found before. "Baby sister, you're a genius," the Polyfather proclaimed as soon as they had closed the door, grinning at Rose and delivering a quick kiss to her cheek.

"Who, me?" Rose asked, swinging her feet in her seat and still clutching at the Doctor's hand. "Why'm I the baby, then?"

"Well, you're littler than me."

"I'm littler than a lot of people, but diamonds and dynamite come in small packages."

"And that is the absolute Goddess-honest truth," Theed proclaimed.

"I can't tell you apart," Hedrin complained. "I'll just say my piece and leave it to you, Fred, this is your responsibility."

"Oh, joy," she said and rolled her eyes. Rose offered her the hand that the Doctor wasn't holding, and she took it with a grateful smile and extended her free hand to Theed, who took it and linked his other with Danika. She looked puzzled, but took the offered hand. Ro joined his free hand to the Doctor's and they all grinned at each other.

"We look like we're expecting Christmas dinner," Rose said, and her tongue poked out of her teeth as she grinned at them.

Hedrin just stood there and shook his head. "You look like a family," he said kindly. "And so I'll leave your family to sort it out. Normally, the newest goddess manifest is found when the Polyfather's successor is a young man."

"That's when we found Danika," Theed told him.

"Sorry Ro," said the Doctor. "Guess this means you can't be a polygamous Polyfather… Ooh, that's almost as fun as alonsy!" Rose rolled her eyes and thumped him quietly under the table.

Hedrin cleared his throat to remind them he was there. "There's no successor, yet, because you're a unique case, Ro. Your reign is going to be longer than any Polyfather in our history." He looked at each of the identical men, apparently trying to determine which was his Polyfather and which were the duplicates.

They tossed each other identical smirks and gestured at each other. He shook his head and chuckled again. "So I would suggest that the second goddess manifest has been provided to wed your successor. Since you are far to young for the selection to have been made, I would suggest that she is meant for your brother."

Leaving this bombshell on the table, Hedrin left the room, grinning at them all as if he'd gotten a bit of his own back.

"I would suggest," the Doctor began as soon as the door had closed behind Hedrin, "that our first course is to talk to Danika's people and find out what's happening on Zydrestra."

"They never use that name for our planet," protested Danika. "How did you know it?"

"They told you. I'm the alien twin. Besides, they'd probably have an easier time if you called yourselves Zydrestri instead of Achincheinfarricantiporianasha. That's a mouth full for any one, and a Discordian doesn't have the attention span."

Danika laughed helplessly, a small, merry twinkle that made the whole room erupt with laughter. "I have missed you all," she said softly.

"I love you," Ro told her, utterly unguarded, and his heart in his eyes.

The Doctor felt the little wary twinge in his head, Rose's heart twisting in her breast and echoing in his mind.

"I love you, too," Danika replied, whisper soft, her face so still and proud as a queen.

Rose clutched at his hand and he smiled down at her, letting her little romantic paroxysms echo through the link and relaxing his barriers enough that the wistful melancholy of his own thoughts showed through. They were interrupted from their silent communion by Theed, who was clapping fondly for his brother, and joined in without another comment.

"The communication band to your world is still available from this room," said Ro. "That's why I brought us here." He flipped a few switches and gestured to Fred, who sighed.

"This is Fredricka Dare You, Reverend Mother of What Was That, Empress of Things that are Orange, and High Priestess to Eris and Her Most Holey Socks. I call on the Government of Zydrestra to respond to the call of Robert the Twenty-third, Polyfather of Malaclypse, Singer of Much Off-Keyness, Lord of Dust Bunnies, Prince of the Disobedient and Most Chaotic Flock of Heathens What Wander Aimlessly in Generally Unplottable Directions. Please respond."

Nothing replied except static. Rose, however, was gaping at Fred in open disbelief. "That's your title?" she demanded incredulously. "I mean, that's what you're actually called, how you'll go down in history books?"

"Yep," said Ro, punctuating the pop with a tap on the end of her nose.

"I proclaim you to be the High Priestess of your own madness," Theed added, helpfully.

"Thanks," Rose replied, dryly, "but that's what I keep him around for, yeah?" She gestured at the Doctor over her shoulder with her thumb.

"Oh," the Doctor pouted, "and all this time I thought..." He bit his lip, then continued at top speed. "All this time, I thought that was ordinary static, but it's not. It's a jamming frequency. Ohhh, Tiff's a right clever little monkey, isn't he? Well it won't work, because I'm much cleverer than he is and also not a monkey."

"Couldn't prove it by the banana thing you've got going," Rose replied. Then she grinned and that little pink tongue tip showed intriguingly. "I declare you to be High Priest of Swapping Bananas," she declaimed, her accent deliberately thicker than usual.

"Thanks Rose," he said, "but I've got enough titles, don't you think?"

"What are they?" Ro asked curiously.

"You really, really don't want to know," the Doctor replied sadly. Then, he shook it off and grinned that enormous, manic grin. "Well, there's only one thing for it. Who wants to go with us and say 'It's bigger on the inside'?"

"Definitely an agent of Chaos," said Theed, shaking his head. "What's that mean?"

"I'm going to take Danika to my ship so she can talk to her people. Do you want to come along?"

They all decided to go along, Ro and Fred out of necessity, Theed out of proudly announced rabid curiosity.

"Back to the TARDIS," Rose shouted, bouncing with happiness as they left the palace behind an hour later, having taken time to get cleaned up and changed. The Doctor held her hand tightly in his own, occasionally bouncing along with her. Even though she still had the chain to the collar he was again wearing, he didn't think she would hare off down the street dragging him after her, but why take chances? Besides, it was nice to hold her hand again.

They were in the last block when she looked up at him with pleading eyes and he took her meaning very well. "What the hell," he said. "It's a tradition, after all."

She grinned as he looked quite sternly at the whole crowd following them. "Run!" he ordered, and he and Rose took off, feet pounding beneath them, hearts thundering in their chests, laughter rolling from their lips. It felt absolutely perfect.

The Doctor collapsed against the TARDIS door, while Rose rested her back on it and Theed ran up beside them. "That was fun!" he announced. "Do you do it a lot?"

"All the time," the Doctor assured him. "It's our favorite pass-time."

"Yeah," agreed Rose, "but you know something? It's nice to do it once in awhile without anyone chasing us."

"Except Fred's rather annoyed guards," Theed pointed out, gesturing behind them, where Ro, Danika, and Fred were approaching at a more sedate pace and a group of wildly disorganized guards had scattered all along the street.

"Hurry up," shouted Rose. "You'll miss the best bit!"

As soon as they arrived, the Doctor threw the doors open and the six entered, leaving the guards outside, and stepping over the small dimensional shelf without the humans noticing it.

"Hello, girl," said Rose to the ship. "We're home."

The Doctor came up behind Rose, opened up his mind to her and let her hear what the TARDIS had to say about the situation. The living machine had registered the outward physical appearance of Ro and Theed and was, once again, enjoying herself enormously. "Is that..." Rose trailed off, awed and incredulous.

"Yes, Rose," he said softly, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "That is what it feels like when an age-old living vessel is giggling at you."

They stood like this for what felt like endless moments, until they were interrupted by Fred clearing her throat behind them. The Doctor pressed a brief kiss into Rose's hair, then turned to his guests. "Well?" he prompted.

Fred grinned at him cheekily. "I've been nominated to tell you that your ship is smaller on the outside."

Rose laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. The Doctor just shook his head. "Only Discordians," he declared. "Only you lot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: The Discordians came up with that long before Clara.


	18. Phone Home

They did the thing with the titles again, this time using the TARDIS systems, which proved completely immune to Tiff's jamming signal, as the Doctor had surmised. She did grumble about it quite a bit, much to Rose's amusement, effectively complaining that the ship generating it was entirely too stupid to be interesting to her in any way.

"That's so brilliant," Rose told the Doctor breathlessly. "Thank you. I feel like I've known her all my life and never really been able to understand her before."

It had surprised Rose a bit to learn that the TARDIS thought of her every bit as possessively as the Doctor seemed to do. There was also the weird tense which the TARDIS used to refer to Rose, but that Rose couldn't quite grasp, because she didn't understand Gallifreyan. It was almost plural, or plural-ish.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a sudden crackle of static from the speakers and then a face appeared on the screen.

"This is the New Reformed Office of Government of Zydrestra, Commander Wan Due speaking. We are receiving you, Polyfather of Malaclypse. Please wait for the Procter; we've summoned him for you."

"Thank you, Commander Due," Ro replied politely and a small, bouncing logo appeared on the screen. "We're on hold," Ro said ironically and made a quick, clever face at the screen. "I love this ship, I really, really love it."

Rose lowered herself into the jump seat, listening while the others discussed the appropriate diplomatic stance to take. She knew she was out of her depth with that, so she studied Danika instead. The ginger haired girl seemed more nervous than Rose would have thought for a freedom fighter meeting her leader. In fact, if Rose had to say, she would have thought Danika looked rather like she herself did, coming home to Jackie.

The screen cleared again and a sharp-faced, haggard, older man appeared, looking rather as though he'd been pulled from a sleep he hadn't wanted to take anyway. "This is Kadin Ardes, Procter of Zydrestra."

"Ro, Polyfather of Malaclypse," the younger man replied. "We have some questions for you, Procter, but I need to know one thing right off. Do you know this lady?"

The Doctor touched a button and the view apparently expanded to include Danika. She smiled at the screen, tears running down her face. "Hello, Father," she said softly.

" _Got it in one,_ " Rose thought smugly. The Doctor beamed at her.

"Danika!" the old man exclaimed, and his face softened so much that he looked like a completely different person. "Are you safe? Have you been hurt?"

"Ro rescued me again, Father," she said with a shake of her head.

Her father smiled at the Polyfather, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "You have my gratitude, Polyfather. What can I do in exchange?"

Rose wondered if it was Ro specifically the man didn't like, or Discordians in general.

"Well, it so happens there's a story several of us need to hear, and since you and Danika are here to tell it, why don't we do that?" He took the young woman's hand and lifted it to his lips. Rose would have thought it was an almost unconscious gesture, but she could see Ro's eyes from here. He meant it, yes, but it was decidedly calculated. "Why don't you start with how your government fell and why your enemy would want to interfere on Malaclypse?"

" _He's good,_ " the Doctor told her.

" _You're better,_ " she replied.

" _I think we can all agree I've had more practice._ " He listened to her giggle in his head for several seconds before he could sort out what she was giggling about. " _Mind out of the gutter, Rose Tyler,_ " he scolded with a silent chuckle.

" _Oh, but it's so much fun there,_ " she replied and then turned back to the screen to avoid distracting him.

"They overthrew the government, captured Danika, drove me and my men into the hills," the Procter was telling Ro. "I never had a chance to warn your predecessor. I hardly had any chance to escape with the people who were in the most danger."

"No, I understand that," said Ro. "I can even accept that. But your people, what made them change their minds and help you regain the government?"

"Atrocities," the Procter said, grimly. "You've seen what they're capable of, Danika told me that much when you sent her back to me." He glared at Ro, and Ro glared back, neither man willing to budge an inch on that story.

"All right," said Fred, interrupting the moment of mutual aggravation with her grave, serious face, "I think you should tell us what happened this time. Especially who Tiff is and what you know about him."

"Plar Tiff. He's Degava's Second-in-Command. All I know is the day we began the final encounter with Degava's forces, Tiff had been sent explicitly to capture Danika."

"Is it too much to ask why?" the Doctor questioned, staring directly into her eyes. "Do you have some secret, some power?"

"No, Degava's just conceived of an absolutely unholy lust for me," Danika informed him coldly. "I've never actually fallen into his hands, so I can't confirm it, but that's the only thing I've been able to work out."

"He also thought to secure his position with the people by marrying her or her sister," added the Procter. "How did you get on Malaclypse this time, Danika?"

"I started fighting Tiff the instant we were out of orbit, Father. He was taking me to Degava he said, but the only thing he had to control me with was their usual explosives, which would be suicide to use in space." She raised a finger to her neck, rubbing the place where the chip the Doctor had deactivated was located. "We got too close to the Omar moon and grazed the shield. It pulled out the gravity systems and threw up down here. The worst thing about that is that the stupid bastard couldn't ditch a ship if everything depended on it, never mind his life, so he made me land the thing."

"And when did he decide to kidnap the Polyfather of Malaclypse?" the Doctor asked. "Why travel all the way from the crash site to the capital to catch Ro?"

"He didn't. I did that. I knew I had to get out of range of the explosives control, so I ran for it while he was unconscious. I borrowed an aircar and came to the palace. I was going to ask Ro for his help, but I couldn't get to him. That's why I questioned you so much at dinner that first night. I was almost positive you weren't him, but I wasn't sure. Unfortunately, Tiff caught up to me that night."

"He was talking to Rose when we were waiting to get in. I didn't register anything at the time, except that he seemed to be alone. Odd, on Malaclypse, but I thought..." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "Never mind, go on."

"He decided we had to get another ship to get off the planet anyway, so the best one would have to be Ro's Command Module. Everyone knows you can't fly a Malaclypse vessel without a Malaclypse pilot, so he thought he'd take the Polyfather to give Malaclypse to Degava at the same time as me. He didn't know we had a history together - he thought I just went looking for help of my own station."

"I'd like her brought back to me, safe," said the Procter.

"Hmm," said Ro. "Danika, what's the correct custom on your planet?"

"You just ask her father," Danika replied with a coy little smile.

Ro grinned. "Procter, I'd like to request your daughter's hand in marriage," he said.

"I can't allow that," the Procter replied grimly. "It's not that I don't like you, Polyfather. You've saved her life twice, and I couldn't ask for better than that, really. But I need her back here. The people's hold on the Government is stabilizing, but with Degava still out there, I can't take a risk that she'll be endangered by being away from my security. Besides, her being there might bring the war to your world."

"My world is already at war with you," Ro reminded him coldly. "Apparently, we owe that all to this Degava, so we're willing to commute our malediction to his people alone. A new treaty will have to be worked out and new terms will have to be established." He sighed. "Danika's told me that if your war is over - and it is, except for getting rid of Degava - that she would be willing to remain with me and be my bride."

"Is this true?" the Procter demanded of his daughter.

"With all my heart, Father," said Danika softly.

"I still don't think it's a good idea," said the Procter.

Ro's eyes went flat. "I'll protect her, Kadin Ardes, more thoroughly than you can possibly imagine. I want us to be on good terms, I want there to be peace between our people. I also want to marry Danika, so I think, in exchange for the peace treaty, I'll simply have to demand your daughter's hand."

The Procter's face returned to the wary, stiff lines it had worn before. "There will be equal measure demanded for that."

"Your people took the life of my predecessor and his brother. I think my offer to protect the life of your daughter is more than fair exchange."

The Doctor grimly stepped into the picture, putting a hand on Ro's shoulder. "Procter, your fear is for this Degava. I'll deal with him: he won't be a problem any more as soon as I find him. We'll deal with Tiff, as well. Is there anything we can do to resolve this in a way that respects the love and the wishes of these two people who have meant so much to each other since they were very young? They're in love, sir, and that's a powerful thing. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures..." He stopped abruptly at a small prod in his head, looked over at Rose where she sat grinning at him, and smiled back, sheepishly. "So sorry, that's Corinthians. My point is, they want and need each other. Do you really want to stand in the way of that?"

"You're his brother?" the Procter demanded.

"I am," the Doctor replied simply.

"Then, I demand exact exchange. He can marry Danika, but Danika's sister must have a husband. You, his brother, will do nicely."


	19. Fair Exchange is No Robbery

There was a familiar sensation starting in the Doctor's head, the sensation of implacable rage. The problem was, it wasn't his emotion. He turned around to look toward the jump seat and found Rose standing there, hands on her hips, eyes fathomless and blazing. She looked, at least for that single instant, as if she was about to ignite into unstoppable, golden flame.

He looked at Ro, Ro looked at Theed, Theed looked at Fred. Fred shrugged. "Let us discuss this proposal, Procter," she suggested diplomatically. "We'll get back to you as soon as possible."

The Doctor cut the connection, and let his head drop into his hands. Behind him, the seething rage seemed to burn ever hotter. "Now, what?" he questioned the room at large.

The rage gave way abruptly to intertwined sensations of dismay and despair. Rose left the console room, headed, the Doctor surmised, for her bedroom. He withdrew as far as he could from her mind without disengaging them entirely. He couldn't let her go completely, he just couldn't, especially not when she was enduring some emotional crisis and might, hopefully, need him or want him to help her.

"I'll go to her," Fred said after the room had fallen into uneasy silence for several minutes. "Can you find Degava?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, and couldn't keep the bitter anger from sounding in his voice. "Down the hall, second left, third right, through the door, down the stairs, first left." He stopped. "Never mind, it's the first door on the right."

Fred tilted her head, gazing at him, blankly.

"The ship's alive. She seems to think Rose needs you. She's moved the room." Then, he tuned out the Discordians and focused instead on the console, turning his full attention to the problem of this Degava person who had been the source and continued to be the cause of such misery.

"I love this ship," Fred commented as she departed.

"Look, I don't know you," said Danika, urgently, "and I'm sorry about all this, but I swear to whatever gods you hold holy that you do not want to marry my sister."

"You're right," the Doctor agreed, still staring at the console, only answering her on a detached autopilot. "It's nothing personal, I promise you. But I try to stay out of trouble, and marrying a stranger is about as not out of trouble as I can possibly get, for several reasons."

"Well, yes, you're right, and that's a good point," Danika agreed, following him around the console, apparently trying to get his attention. "But believe me when I tell you that the rather better point is the fact that my sister is a psychotic bitch."

"Oh?" interrupted Theed, "do tell."

*?*

"He left me for a princess once, you know," said Rose as Fred let herself into the small, cluttered room.

"Ok," said Fred. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I got over it. I really, really did. She was one of the most beautiful people I ever met, and she was ... a professional courtesan, I think that's what they're called." She sat up and gestured Fred into the over-stuffed chair next to her bed. "She knew exactly what to say, exactly how to win a man over - or a Time Lord, apparently. Or me, actually. Like I said, I talked to her, once, just went to warn her like he told me to do. She just stood there, staring at me, going on an' on about how we loved him and how much we knew it was worth to love him. As if I was s'posed to share him with her, like a plate of biscuits at a tea party." She flung her hair out of her face and sighed. "As if he was mine to share in the first damn place."

"And this situation reminded you?" Fred inquired, gently.

"Yeah. I'm not stupid, I know he won't marry anyone if he can possibly get out of it, but he'll do a lot of really crazy things for love, you know. He's just..." She laughed bitterly. "He's some kind of hopeless romantic in a lot of ways. It's stupid for me to sit in here, sulking, but I... I don't get..." She sobbed helplessly. "I'm so human, and he's not, and there can never, ever be anything between us."

"I'm very sorry," said Fred and closed her arms around Rose in a tight hug.

Rose cried out all the bitter frustration, the terrible longing, let Fred hold her tightly until her tears had reduced from wracking sobs to soft hiccups. "Sorry," she apologized.

Fred reached up and tucked Rose's hair behind her ears. "Don't be sorry," she said softly. "It's what a sister is for. Besides, it's my job, anyway. And I can tell that you've never had anyone to talk to, either."

Rose nodded and looked around for her handkerchief. When she found it, Fred was studying her with an intense expression that might have been curiosity, if not for the funny little cant to her lips, which suggested mischief.

"What?"

"What's this chair here for?"

"It's the Doctor's. He..." Rose looked at Fred and started laughing helplessly. "He hangs out while I sleep," she said at last, and rolled her eyes. "Are we ridiculous or what?"

Fred winked. "'Fraid so. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up and changed. Is that his coat?"

"Yes."

"Stay in it. Unless you can think of a better one."

"Actually, I think I can get the TARDIS to give me his coat, the one he usually wears now."

"Better and better," said Fred.

"Why?"

"Well, you see, Rose, there's this little problem I haven't properly explained to you."

"Not another one. What is it?"

"As the goddess manifest, you're pretty much expected to marry. They're going to have to fight that out among themselves, I guess. But Theed's not taken."

Rose looked at the wicked gleam in her sister's eyes and giggled.

*?*

"Got him," the Doctor said. "Behind your moon. What have you done to the surface, by the way?"

"Would you believe me if I told you we grow exotic flowers there?" Theed asked.

"Knowing you people? Yes, every time."

"Well, we don't, it's a fully automated Omarium mine, but we don't like to advertise."

"Your moon is full of Omarium?" the Doctor demanded, and checked his scanners. "Ah, so it is. Oh, that explains so much."

"Like what?" said Danika.

"Why you can't pilot their ships, for one. They're more advanced than you are, princess. Your father would be a fool to hold out. It also explains why they're all so creative. Omarium gives off a peculiar radiation that tends to affect the centers that process imagination in the human brain."

"Really?" said Fred as she reentered the console room. "So we're chemically induced?"

"That and you have a genetic predisposition to it, anyway. Here's your terrorist dictator, by the way. Any idea why the ship looks like a piece of space junk?"

"We sort of blew up their fleet," said Danika. "Well, all right, my sister's team blew it up. She likes to blow things up. And yell, she's good at that, too."

"Her name wouldn't be Dorothy, would it?" the Doctor asked, smiling mysteriously.

"No, it's Karissa. Why Dorothy?"

"Little girl I raised, named Dorothy. Used to blow things up all the time. Probably still does." He smiled. "Brave girl, Ace." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, we'd better see what they're up to. Where's Rose?"

"Changing clothes. She'll be here in a second."

"Oh, good." He sighed. "Very, very, very good," he added, and let his face relax into that broad, crazy grin.

As he tuned the scanners into the ship, though, his face gradually fell. Once he'd received final confirmation, he sighed and looked up at them, feeling the darkness and sorrow encroach. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry. That ship is dead in space. Only one life reading on it, and I'm not really sure about it."

Rose came running into the console room, then, her hair still damp from a shower, and looked at him in horror. Apparently, his distress had transmitted to her over the link. He might have felt less guilty for what he was about to do if he'd at least left her in peace. "Everybody out," he ordered. "I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Not happening," Rose said. "You're not leaving me, here or anywhere."

"Let me come with you," Theed and Ro said, simultaneously.

"No," screeched Danika. "Ro, you can't, it might be a trap!"

"She's right," agreed the Doctor and Theed at the same time.

"I'm going," said Ro. "It's my responsibility."

"I have never, ever had to do this to you," said Theed, grimly, "and I really hate having to do it now. You're not, Ro. You're not going, you're not leaving this planet. You have responsibilities here, Polyfather, and there is no way you're going any where near what might be a trap and what might just as easily be a plague ship. Take your sister and your promised bride and go."

"Can he do that?" Ro demanded angrily of Fred.

She sighed. "That's actually his only documented responsibility, Ro, to make sure you protect yourself."

"Well, I don't care. I'm the Polyfather, aren't I?"

Fred sighed and took his arm. "I'm sorry, that's his authority, and I'll back him. The army is mine, if necessary, so please don't make him have you arrested. We have enough problems right now, don't you think? You and I need to track down Tiff's ship and finish it off."

"It's in the southern hemisphere, somewhere," added Danika. "I can't say where. Right next to a really huge lake. But I'll help you." She smiled at him, breath-takingly winsome in the cant of her head, the dim console light coming up around her, illuminating her face to make her quite dazzling.

The Doctor was secretly quite amused, both at the TARDIS's help to the girl's feminine appeal and the quite familiar scene of a man being charmed by a woman who held him in her absolute thrall, even if he was the usual victim of that adorable little trick.

"Well, it's a start," conceded Ro grumpily after a few moments, reaching out to take Danika's hand.

The Doctor could have told them exactly where it was, but decided Ro needed the distraction. "We'll be back in 10 minutes," he promised.

"Unless it's ten months," Rose added cheekily.

"That was once," he protested. "Once!"

"What about the time we met Queen Victoria?"

"Ok, twice," he admitted.

"And we ended up at the coronation instead of Elvis?"

He pouted. "I'll be very, very careful," he promised.

She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. "I know you will. But I'm not leaving anyway."

"Fine. Rose, Theed, and I will go and see what happened. You three, find that ship."

*?*

"What are you up to, anyway?" Ro asked Fred as they stood watching the bright blue box.

"Well, let's see. Danika's sister needs a groom. The public needs to see you married to the goddess manifest, and there's a second goddess manifest who they'll want to see as well. I'm just doing the math."

"I can't think why Father's trying to marry Karissa off, anyway," said Danika. "She isn't going to be happy about it, and she's liable to make them both miserable, Father and her betrothed."

"Really?" said Ro. "At the moment, I'm feeling very uncharitable toward both of my brothers, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest. As soon as we find that ship, I can tell your father he can marry her to which ever one he wants - if he can catch them."

"He'll have a harder time catching her," said Danika.

Ro grinned and kissed the top of her head. "I wish him all the luck in the worlds, then."


	20. Sinister

"It's like some sort of mad fairy tale," Rose told Theed, while the Doctor reset the coordinates.

"Not like any fairy tale I ever heard of," Theed replied. "Danika's a bit like Sleeping Beauty, I suppose. If you can imagine Sleeping Beauty with a whopping big gun."

"Yeah, and I'm a complete Cinderella, myself," Rose agreed. "Cinderella, right, Doctor?"

"Hum?" he said. "No, Rise of the Phoenix, actually. Old Gallifreyan story. Or I suppose you might be a bit Snow White. Mickey the Idiot would've made a good dwarf."

She snorted. "Yeah, but the one with the biggest ears was Dopey, not the prince, or Doc."

He laughed. " _You're cruel, you know that? You'd think, once I got rid of those ears, you'd miss them a little and quit teasing me."_

 _"Someday you'll lose those big brown eyes, too. And I'll miss them terribly, but I'll still tease you about them._ "

"Your mum's got the whole wicked queen thing though, you gotta admit that."

Rose sighed. "One of these days you're going to say something to her and she's gonna knock you into orbit. My mum doesn't like him most of the time," Rose added to Theed.

"Mum's prerogative, I s'pose," he replied.

The Doctor had finished setting the coordinates. "Grab hold of something, Theed. Now. When we get there, I am going to open the doors. I am going to take a reading with the sonic screwdriver. I am going out there. You pair are going to stay here until I give you an all clear, is that understood? If there's something out there, the TARDIS forceshield will protect you, and I am pretty well immune to most things. Do you understand me, both of you?"

"Yes," they said in quiet unison, both impressed by the urgency in his voice.

The take-off and landing went about as smoothly as anything ever did in the TARDIS, which meant they only got torn free in the last minute and landed in a sprawled heap near the door control. "S'like a dream come true," Rose giggled. She was effectively wedged in the middle of the identical pair.

Theed tugged happily at her hair and tried to wriggle out from beneath her, laughing merrily the whole time. "I love this ship," he exclaimed. "She's a genius!"

The Doctor, blushing brightly, pulled his face out of her cleavage and climbed to his feet.

"Yeah," he agreed with Rose as he adjusted his clothes and fretted with the sonic screwdriver. "Jack's dream."

Rose laughed and toppled over out of Theed's lap, then turned back impulsively and kissed his cheek. "Thanks," she said.

"Hey!" the Doctor protested loudly. "What about me?"

"Thanks for not using your tongue to see where you'd landed." She grinned cheekily at getting this teasing in. Then, she remembered where he had landed and blushed brilliant crimson.

The look he gave her sent an entirely different heat coursing over her body. She felt like she was naked to his gaze, mesmerized by his burning eyes, completely defenseless and utterly without fear of it. " _Are you sure?_ " came the flirtatious question.

She was spared the agony of having to find an answer by the Doctor's sudden rush into action. "Just remember what I said," he requested. "I'll let you know, Rose." And he tapped her forehead with a gentle finger, threw open the doors, and stalked outside.

"Jealous, much?" Theed murmured quietly.

"He used to be awful. He's better now. Or better at getting away with it, not sure. He can be quite dangerous when he needs to be."

"I was there when he found out you'd been taken," Theed replied. "I'd never thought... he looked like an alien, finally, which is so odd, because he also looks just like us at the same time. There's this..." He shifted his hands, as though trying to find a word.

"Aura," Rose filled in for him. "It's the way he is. He can be so kid like and... uh oh. Let's go. You're about to meet the Oncoming Storm."

They stepped outside and the very first thing they saw was a body. The next three things were also bodies. The stench of death was heavy in the air, making Rose clench her teeth and have to fight to keep her eyes open.

"You shouldn't be seeing this," said Theed, genuinely concerned.

"S'better than seeing them die. S'better than being the reason they died." She closed her eyes briefly to fight back the tears, then she opened them again and moved on.

It was cold enough that she could see their breath in the air, but not cold enough to prevent the bodies from exuding that almighty reek of decaying flesh. There was also a sweet, bitter smell in the air, like almonds, some putrid hint at the cause of this vile demise.

The Doctor was standing, as stark and as still as a marble statue, his tall form curved slightly as he bent over one of the bodies, his face more shadow than substance in the bad lighting. Even from across the room, she could see the fire, blazing in his eyes, the fury vibrating in his hands. "They're all dead," he stated, his voice as cold as the space outside. "Three hundred and fifty perfectly healthy human beings. All dead."

"How?" Theed gasped. "What happened to them?"

"Poison," he replied, and nudged the corpse next to him with his toe. "Except this one. His body's still warm, he only died minutes ago. Know him?"

"It's Degava," Theed replied, closing his eyes and taking a few deep, slow breaths. "He's the one that captured Ro all those years ago. He got away from us, but Ro thought he'd died in the building. What happened to him?"

"He's only been dead a few minutes, the rest quite a bit longer. It looks like he shot himself."

Rose forced herself to look and found that, yes, the man's brains were spattered in a very final sort of way, all over the back of his chair. She gulped quickly to fight the urge to upchuck. The Doctor turned to her sharply, concern heavy in his suddenly haunted eyes. " _Go on back,_ " he suggested in her mind. " _I don't want you to see anymore of this, and there's nothing we can do._ "

She started to protest, but he brushed her thoughts with grief and guilt. " _Just this once, Rose, for me. I need to know you're away from this, for me, so that one of us is still in one piece. I need you to be waiting for me, this time. Please._ "

She nodded and turned away for the first time she could remember, heading back to the TARDIS, but not before letting all the compassion and kindness she felt for him wash over her thoughts. She thought he even managed a small smile before he turned back to Theed.

"Are there ground weapons on the Omar base?"

"No," Theed replied grimly. "But if it hits the shield..."

"I don't want to risk it," the Doctor said. "No one needs a floating mausoleum. Help me find the self-destruct."

The two worked together for several minutes, searching all the nearby stations, moving bodies with a careful respect that was almost unconscious. "This one can't have been more than 15," said Theed, heavily, after one such exchange. "Is Rose going to be all right?"

"She bounces back well, my Rose," the Doctor said softly. "Looked death in the face a fair few times, I'm ashamed to say. Rose is braver than whole star systems, you see, but she knows what this means as well as we do."

"Yeah," Theed said, and leaned over and kicked Degava's body viciously. "This stupid son-of-a-bitch decided that if he lost, so would all his people." He kicked the corpse again for good measure and the body slid from the seat, falling to the floor with a disgustingly squishy sound.

"And you, too, apparently," said the Doctor, eying the mechanism that had been hidden by the body, connected into the main drives through the chair controls. He raced toward the chair, and swore colorfully as soon as he confirmed what he saw. "It's on a collision course, set to detonate in the atmosphere on Malaclypse. He really, really hated you people."

"He..." Theed sighed. "He must have been one of us. That's the only possible conclusion I can reach. Can you stop it?"

"Oh, yes. He's not hurting your people any more." He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and opened the panel on the device in the chair. "I'm only going to get one shot at this, so I'll need to concentrate. What I'm going to do is reset it to explode in fifteen minutes. Then, I'm going to tow it out of the system."

"Your ship is awful small for that sort of thing."

"She's also powerful enough to handle it. But you can help it along. You can rewire that navigation board, can't you? The one that's been ripped apart over there?"

"Probably, but how'd you know?"

"You told me yourself, yesterday, when we found the wall electrified. Said if you just had the parts, you could reroute it."

"That was today," Theed corrected and, grabbing a tool kit from under a nearby station, got to work.

"What, really?"

"Yeah, this morning."

"Ha. Deadly danger twice in one day, that's almost just like my real life."

"And you take Rose into that?" Theed demanded, as a spark jumped from the panel and he ducked just in time.

"All the time. Why?"

"I think she could be happy with us. Hell, stay with us, both of you. You'll have a home on Malaclypse, always. Ro and I could do with your help, you can do so many things. And Rose would be safe, and that's got to mean something to you."

"It does," the Doctor replied sadly. "More than my own life, I can promise you. You can ask her, I won't stop you. I'd even manage to be grateful eventually." He sighed. "I can't stay, Theed, much as I'm grateful for the welcome, and you can't even guess what your invitation means to me. But you're the one who makes people keep their responsibilities and I'd repay you poorly for that very sensible advice if I neglected my own. Given time, and if I can I'm going to risk taking it, I'll come to love you and Ro and Fred. No harm in that, except that I'll live for another hundred, five hundred, a thousand years, maybe longer. But this is the first time in longer than you can possibly imagine that any planet has tempted me so much. For Rose's sake, alone, I'd stay if I could. The addition of the three of you, a family that wants to call me their own?" He stopped what he was doing, shook his head, and looked his adopted brother in the eye.

"I will miss you and your world for the rest of my life."

"We'll miss you too, you know that, right? Discordians form attachments quickly, but not haphazardly. Maybe it's our chaotic nature, but we've always been a bit vague on what makes a family a family." Theed reached over and took his hand and clutched it, hard and briefly, then let him go and turned back to his tinkering. "Stay as long as you can. Come visit us when you can. We'll welcome you if we're 95 years old and you still look like you do now. And, for the record, I wouldn't take Rose away from you if she was the last female in the Universe." Theed snorted. "Actually, I probably couldn't. She loves you like the air and the light."

"You know something? You people really are becoming family." The Doctor chuckled grimly. "You're forever giving romantic advice. And if that doesn't come from a brother, I don't know what does."

They worked in companionable silence for another few minutes. "How's that coming?"

"Fubar," Theed replied dryly. "It's fried. How about you?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Snafu," he said. "I need three more minutes and then we are going to have to beat a hasty retreat. Can you jerk me about three feet of cable out of that console?"

"Coming right up," Theed agreed and started tearing apart the work he'd been attempting.

By the time their three minutes were up, they'd rigged a small remote control detonator to the original detonation device. The Doctor let Rose know what was going on, and showed her as quickly as he could what he needed her to do.

As soon as they hit the TARDIS door, Rose started the dematerialization sequence, as the Doctor used the screwdriver to set off the timer. He finished the sequence, touched the emergency forceshield extension, and rematerialized just off the port bow. "Let's get this thing out of here," he said.

It took them all but one of their fifteen minutes to tow the ship safely out of the way. "Know what?" the Doctor said as he set the ship adrift. "I'm starving. Ro said something about having a really good dinner in Danika's honor. What do you think?"

"Please," said Rose.

"Lamb," said Theed. They both looked at him, strangely. He grinned. "It's simple, right. Ro always wants lamb for special occasions. This is as special as it gets."

"Well, we're here, and Rose, I didn't miss it by five minutes. Let's see if we can coax him into feeding us."

"Only if I can have the wine," said Rose, softly. "Anything to forget that place for a few minutes." She turned back to her room, apparently to finish what they had interrupted earlier, but her presence in his mind was strangely comforting, even in the light of all they had seen.


	21. The Truth Will Out

Rose had apparently decided that a change of clothes was in order. She had somehow talked the TARDIS out of his brown, pin-striped suit coat and was wearing it over a pale peasant top and an ankle length, flowing, gold-colored skirt. When she came in wearing it, he had been running a check on the status of the Zydrestri ship, but the second he laid eyes on her, the vile thing drifted out of his mind and away into space as his brain blanked out completely. All delicate and gold, now, she looked like some fairy creature with his jacket sleeves rolled up at her wrists and her hair pulled neatly up at the top of her head. He wanted to tug the band from her hair and watch it spill down around her shoulders, nibble on her lip like she was now, push his jacket away from her shoulders and watch it tumble to the ground. Throw the rest of her clothes down on top of it, that would be a good idea.

The TARDIS, utterly unrepentant, brought the lights up around her, bathing her in the sparkling aura of her golden beauty. He felt as though his jacket was marking her, as though her small, lovely frame was branded by the mere presence of his clothes, with his name, as his property. She seemed to somehow have known this, as she cuddled into the jacket, inhaling the scent of him from the fabric, smiling that dreamy smile that made him want to haul her off somewhere safe and perfect and quiet and do things to her that would bring dreamy smiles to her lips for the rest of her life.

"Nice shoes," he finally managed, although admittedly, he hadn't even noticed them. He forced his eyes and his hands back to the console, remembering that there had been other occasions when he'd wanted to drag her off and ravish her instead of doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. He had brushed it aside before, he could do it again now. And, he thought proudly, without calling her a stupid ape, too.

She ignored him with a completely faked haughty dignity, secretly quite delighted at this response, though she wondered if she should have been offended. His eyes had been so dark as he watched her, almost black, and so intense, she felt she could have been drowned in them without trying.

Theed, she was pleased to see, had been studiously ignoring them throughout this exchange, looking through the books and magazines that had been piled haphazardly on the sofa near the door. She thought about going over to explain some of them to him, but quickly changed her mind.

Instead, she amused herself, while the Doctor ran some inexplicable scan, by rummaging through his coat pockets, as she had before, checking to see what she'd find, wondering, among other things, if there was a bottom. Most things she found were quite bizarre and more than a little unexpected, like the matched pair of yo-yos and the wire framed shades with the green bottle glass lenses. However, what looked like a self-help tape in the right hand pocket set her giggling helplessly.

"What is this?" she teased, pulling it out and waving it under the Doctor's nose.

"How long's it been there?" Theed asked.

"A decade or so, probably," the Doctor confessed. "I move things around - never know when you'll need a cassette tape, you know. It's probably Freddie Mercury singing by now, I'm sure."

"That's what happens to taped media if you leave it lying around," agreed Theed. "Had a news reel turn itself into 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on me once."

"It says it's called 'Friendship: As Easy as Pi' by Dr. Charles Eppes," Rose told them blithely, making a face at the Doctor as he continued to watch her, his eyes boring into her. It had seemed such a simple, silly thing, stealing his coat, but it seemed to have made it impossible for him to take his eyes off her.

"See for yourself." The Doctor stuck the tape into a slot that appeared in the console and the TARDIS was filled with the sound of Queen, harmonizing their way through "Somebody to Love".

"I'm not going to ask," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "I'm just not. I'm hungry."

"Let's go then," the Doctor suggested, and straightened his coat carefully on her shoulders. While the song the TARDIS had picked to start the tape on was absurdly telling – he knew from Theed's smirk that someone had noticed, anyway – he was also grateful she'd stuck to something nice, not something that he'd end up getting slapped over at least once. The lyrics to "Tie Your Mother Down" wandered aimlessly through his head until he firmly tucked them back in the corner where he kept his memories of Jackie Tyler.

*?*

The TARDIS had appeared, as Rose had suggested several days ago, on an empty lot close to the palace. Rose grinned when she noticed this, fondly taking the Doctor's hand as they left the blue box to meet Ro and Fred. She offered her other hand to Theed, who took it, smiling, and the three walked in a cheery unison toward the palace gates, putting the horror of the spaceship firmly behind them.

Ro was waiting for them at the main gate, a contented grin, like the proverbial cat, on his face. "We found it. They've deactivated the signal and are taking it to your base, Theed, so you can dismantle it at your leisure. He'd taken all the weapons, all the medical supplies. Everything else was so damaged in the crash, it's a wonder either of them survived. The lady is one hell of a pilot."

Then Theed told him what they'd found, and he looked decidedly sick. "I don't even know of the bastard, what do you mean he must have been one of us?"

"Ten years ago, he conquered the Greyfaces and then immediately came here. Today, he died with a plan to kill half our population. What he did to you, Ro..."

"Not here, dammit," Ro said angrily. "Look, we'll talk about it later, it was a long time ago. Tiff's secure, Danika's here, we're all safe. The only thing left is to make a new treaty with the - what'd you call them, Doctor? Zydrestri? And then we'll all be fine. The war will be over and the past firmly behind us. That's all I want, Theed. Just peace. Come to dinner. We're having lamb."

"Told you so," said Theed.

*?*

Rose sat at the High Table, enjoying the company more than her dinner, which was excellent and accompanied by a fine dark merlot that Theed had requested especially for her. But her table mates were far more interesting. The triplets had gotten strange looks from everyone in the room at least once, and even in their right clothes had been confused with one another on multiple occasions. She and Fred and Danika had switched seats several times in a game of Fred's own devising. The identical trio passed each other plates and goblets of different things, explaining to each other what was wonderful and arguing over what was best, though as near as Rose could tell, their taste buds were similar since some banana custard concoction was currently the object of their affection.

And then there was the one thing that had made everything brilliant. Every time she looked up, she found the Doctor smiling at her, soundlessly, just watching her with some contented expression that, if she didn't know better, she would have called... best not to even think it. The plates had been cleared, wine was being poured in generous servings, and they were lingering, each seeming reluctant to go. Theed was bothering Fred with a series of rather adorable conjuring tricks to one side of Ro, to the other, Danika sat listening to the Polyfather with rapt fascination.

"What's he quoting?" Rose asked the Doctor quietly.

" _The Principia Discordia_. One of their major holy books. _The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger_."

"And that was written on Earth before I was born?"

"Yep."

"Brilliant," she said, admiringly.

"I can do it, too," he said softly.

"What? Quote stuff?"

"From the _Principia_ ," he agreed, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it tenderly. "I have the perfect thing, for a night like this."

"Really? Not the bit about the dancing star, I hope, he's already..."

The Doctor gave her that breath-snatching, miles-deep look and shook his head, stilling her voice in her throat. She felt as she had earlier in the TARDIS, as though all her defenses were swept away, as though she was alone in all of time with only him. His presence in her mind was like solace, like desert rain, like ocean breeze.

"No, it's simpler. Just about the things that make tonight perfect." He smiled a slow, beautiful smile, his lips slightly parted, his hand still holding hers and drawing circles across the back of it. "'A jug of wine, a leg of lamb and Thou! Beside me, whistling in the darkness,'" he quoted, his eyes burning into hers.

His face was only inches from hers. She tilted her head to the side, moving closer. His hand raised to her cheek, brushing it lightly with fingers that caressed and enticed. Her blood caught on fire, and she knew he felt it, too. His thumb brushed across her lips, and they parted at this, her breath coming far too fast.

Now was the time, it was going to happen.

He moved closer, and his other hand dropped to her thigh, drawing opposing circles with a slow, lazy motion. She turned in her chair without turning her head, caught in his orbit, her blood singing under the spell of his time and mystery scent. Closer, still, and she could see the dazzling array of color and wonder burning in his eyes. They batted closed, then open again, studying her face, even as his mind was studying hers for some sign of protest. There was none, she had none. She wanted to feel his lips on hers, his hearts beat with hers, his taste mingle with hers. Any second, a single breath, a distance no wider than a feather and she would, at last.

Something hit the table behind him with a loud thud and they both jumped, parting from each other as though dragged apart by separate gravity fields. "What is it?" Fred's sharp voice demanded as Rose tried to regain her scattered composure. "What's happening?"

"It's Tiff," said the guard whose interruption had just destroyed the moment Rose had been hoping for all her life. "He's escaped."

" _That does it,_ " came the Doctor's dark, bitter thought. " _This is going to stop._ "

*?*

"We're going to have to lure him out," said Fred later that evening, lounging in a small chair in the sitting room, toying with the rings on her fingers. "We can't leave him free, he'll only cause more trouble."

"I agree," said Ro, who was relaxed on the sofa with Danika curled at his side. "Tentatively, I'd suggest something terribly public."

"Why can't he just leave us alone?" Danika wailed. "He's alone now, isn't he?"

"No," said the Doctor, and Fred and Rose both nodded agreement. "If he was alone, he couldn't have gotten loose. Someone's a traitor. And I think I know who it has to be."

"I didn't do it!" Danika's protest was a shrill, panicked whine.

"I know you didn't," he said, smiling kindly. "Not this time. You're hopeless, Danika, not hapless. You would have helped him, if he hadn't involved Ro and if he hadn't wanted to go back to Degava. He told you he just wanted to escape, didn't he? And you fell for the whole line, since that was all you've ever wanted, too? How long have you been fighting, only to find out that neither side was worth fighting for?"

"Ten years," she said bitterly. "Longer, maybe. I was fourteen, Doctor, fourteen when my father was run out of his capitol. At the time, I believed him when he said he was a hero who was put out of his rightful place by the wicked opposition. But he wasn't. He's not a hero, he's a man. He's the lesser of two evils, but he's my father. I'm supposed to love him and I can't! I just wanted to leave, I'd finally had more than I could take. My father had won, he had the planet back, the atrocities would stop. Tiff said he'd had enough, that he was getting out. Well, my sister would be a fine successor - she's noble and brave and fearless and a better man than my father ever will be, even if she is crazy as a Discordian." She stopped, then continued in a soft, apologetic tone. "Sorry, that's an expression on my world. " She wrung her hands in her lap, looking terribly alone and horribly ashamed. "He raised her like she was his son, you know. I never knew anything about anything until the war started, but she's better than me. Karissa won't kill non-combatants, and I... I've killed people and..."

"So have I, Danika," Ro interrupted. "We didn't have a choice, then. Well, we did. We could have let Degava win. Those people wouldn't have died, if we let him win. But my people would have been slaughtered."

"But they believed in fairy tales, Ro!" she shouted, her voice desperate, pleading. "They thought it was some kind of game. They didn't see the old man murdered, they didn't hear you screaming. They didn't see what he did to..."

"What he did to me," interrupted Theed. "No, but Danika, it wasn't our choice. It was theirs. They'd chosen to follow the lies he spun for them, that Malaclypse is some kind of land of gold and treasure and that he would take it and make them all rich." Theed looked up from his hands and met the Doctor's sympathetic eyes. "He told his people that we needed some kind of order, that our world was out of control. Greyfaces believe that, they always do. I didn't think at the time, but now I know he must have been one of the Rets, banished from the planet for dangerous subversion. He had to have been."

Danika sighed, wringing her hands and sitting up, away from Ro, who was looking at her like he'd never seen her before. "The ship was hit by a laser canon blast as we left Zydrestra. Tiff was knocked unconscious, so I flew the thing. Malaclypse was the closest safe port, the only one we could make. We came together to the city - I'd forgotten about your peculiarities about men or I'd've had a better disguise. I was going to find you for help, Ro. Just to get away, not asking anything of you. I didn't know..."

She stopped, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks and drawing a deep breath. "It wasn't me he wanted at all, it was you. Tiff had been told to use me as bait. Whatever happened between you and Degava, he never let it go. Never. I didn't tell him I knew the Doctor wasn't you. To be honest, I thought it would help - you're dangerous, Doctor, you've got such frightening eyes. I thought I could get Tiff to help me get what I thought was an impostor out of the way and let him think he'd gotten you. But he's such a useless little... and Rose beat me in that contest. I could just see I'd made a mistake, so I didn't even try, not that I could have beaten you, Rose. And then I found out he'd put that chip in my neck, so I made a run for it. That's when your guards arrested me." She looked at Ro now, her streaming eyes so scared and pleading, desperate that he believe her. "I never meant to betray you, I would never, ever have wanted you hurt or any of your people."

Ro looked at her, really looked at her this time. "You know, there's every chance that you're lying to me, right?"

"I'm not, I swear it." She looked rather more like a bedraggled kitten than a princess as she kept away from him, almost as if she thought he was too good for her to touch all of the sudden.

"I know you're not," he said, and smiled, tenderly. He ran a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to meet his eyes. "Danika, you're very precious, and I really do love you. I really will make you my wife, if you stay. But you're going to have to help us, now, and that's going to mean going against your father's wishes."

"Really?" she asked, and her face lit up like radiant day. "I'd rather do anything that my father doesn't want than just about anything I can think of."

"Then that's a bonus for you, isn't it?"

Fred sighed. "Why didn't you tell us about this before, Ro?"

He stood up sharply and stalked away from all of them, his shoulders stiff, his head down. Then, as if suddenly deciding that enough was enough, he rounded on her. "What'd you want to know, Fred? That at the tender age of sixteen years, I broke a man's neck with my bare hands? That I dragged a teenage girl out of a prison cell by her hair just so I wouldn't be alone? That I hid and watched Theed kicked and beaten half to death because they thought he was me? That I watched my innocent brother stand there with ice in his eyes and gun down six people, two of whom were non-combatants? That I killed eight guards and a pastry chef just to get to that filthy wanker and he still escaped me? That I used the body of my predecessor for a step ladder to get into an air duct?"

He paused and took a deep breath, his eyes far away and more than a little mad. But he didn't stop, even as his sister shook her head in wordless horror. He continued talking, his voice getting louder and more hoarse with every word.

"And if you didn't want to know all of that, which parts should I have told you? The part where I ended up wetting myself when they exploded Jin's head all over my face? The part where I decided in cold blood to use the ship to blow up the building and everyone in it? The part where that revolting son-of-a-bitch took an unnatural fondness for my juvenile flesh and demanded I be stripped and whipped, just so he could watch and..."

"Ro, stop it," said the Doctor in that still, irrefutable voice. "It's the past. It's over." The Time Lord crossed the room and snatched Ro to him in a fierce hug, while the Polyfather struggled, howling in misery against his shoulder. Still, the Doctor held on, his embrace strong and utterly understanding. Ro collapsed against him suddenly, trembling with anguish and rage, clenching his hands in despair. Theed stood and threw himself at them as well, and the Doctor opened his arms enough to accept him. They held onto each other, while Ro cried and cursed and wailed in despair. Theed clutched at his brother, shaking with violent sobs, but oddly silent, and still the Doctor held on.

Danika had sunk, boneless, to the floor. Fred dropped to her knees beside the younger woman and wrapped her arms around her, rocking her gently, holding her while she wept.

Rose could only stand there, never taking her eyes off the three identical men and their desperate communion. Her mind was working at a frightening pace while the Doctor helped Ro patch his sanity back together. She kept coming back to the first time Tiff had tried to take the Doctor. He had snuck down the corridor to the royal apartments, smashed her upside the head, shot the Doctor full of a sedative, and snuck the Doctor back out again. Past the guard. Both times. The same guard. Both times.

The men seemed to be separating now, and the Doctor looked up at her, over their bowed heads, and nodded. "Rose has found your traitor," he said quietly.

Fred looked up from Danika's still trembling form. "Which one is it?" she asked.

"The one who was guarding the royal apartments last night," she said. "'Cuz Tiff managed to sneak by him, twice, once with an unconscious man who looked like his Polyfather. That shouldn't have been possible."

Danika looked up and frowned at them. "I didn't even think," she said softly. "That was too easy, wasn't it?"

"Oh, yes," said the Doctor. "Definitely."

"Off with his head?" asked Theed, hopefully, still sounding quite shaky.

"Nope," said Fred. "We need him to set the trap for us."

"What are you going to do?" asked the Doctor, looking quietly amused for some reason. Rose realized it was because he got to sit this one out in a lot of ways, letting other people plan, other people capture, other people fight for themselves for once. She got the distinct feeling that he was enjoying himself on a totally different level than usual, not thrilling in mere survival, but finding true joy in the quality of this life.

"We're going to repair to the Family Chapel, now," said Fred. "Because there's a small ceremony that has to take place. Then, I think we'd do best to stage a large - no, make that enormous - double wedding."

"What?" said Ro, still wiping at his face with the Doctor's handkerchief. "Double wedding?" Then, his dark eyes came alive again, all of the sudden, burning with an intensity to almost rival his adopted brother's. He took a very similar manic mood swing, and ran over to the side bar, setting out glasses, pouring drinks, grinning ecstatically all the while.

"Well, it's just we have two goddess manifests," said Fred. "By custom, they're both supposed to be married, so I thought we should just do both at once. The trouble is deciding on the second groom."

The Doctor's pointed glare at Theed was remarkably similar to his previous incarnation's expression in the presence of Mickey Smith.


	22. Going to the Chapel

The room was simple but beautiful, absolutely bedecked with golden apples and, here and there, a small depiction of a hot dog. The statue at the front of the room was small, maybe three-quarters human size, and displayed an ethereally lovely woman, clad in night blue robes that had been pain-stakingly painted with a million golden stars. She wore a rainbow round her neck and had clouds and the crescent moon in her hair. She was magnificent, and Rose knew she had to be Eris.

Rose watched Danika closely as she stood there at the front of the chapel with Ro, trembling and watching Fred's every move with undisguised awe.

" _She makes an awful spy,_ " she thought to the Doctor.

" _She's not really bright, I'm afraid, not like you,_ " he answered. " _She'll be good with Ro, though. She was raised for the kind of work that will be expected of her, before the war broke out, anyway._ "

" _It feels weird to not be right in the middle of the revolution,_ " thought Rose.

" _We couldn't take sides in this one,_ " he replied. " _Danika's assessment is actually completely correct. Her father's no worse than any other politician, but he's no better, either. I just want to round up Tiff and tell him what his brave leader has done._ "

" _Yeah, well, I don't want to marry Theed._ "

" _It's only a ruse. He's a good man, and he does like you._ "

" _Likes me, yeah. But doesn't love me._ "

" _Good point._ " He smiled and took her hand. " _Don't worry, Rose, Tiff won't let them finish the ceremony. You won't be married long, if you manage to get married at all._ "

She sighed and turned her attention back to the front of the room, where Fred was fastening a thin golden collar around Ro's neck. She could just make out that it was engraved with golden apples, burnished bright against the highly polished collar. It was beautiful. Fred gestured to Rose, and she blinked at her, then accepted the loose golden chain Fred held out for her. "Attach it," Fred whispered.

Rose did as she was told, found the place on the back of the collar where the apple motif stopped and there was a thin, golden hook. She attached it and held the chain. Theed took it from her, then held it out to Danika. Fred gestured the Doctor to take the chain as well, so the Time Lord closed his hand next to Theed's.

"Thus we entrust our brother to your safekeeping," said Fred. "Guard his heart and he will guard your steps, and you will be companions together through all the Chaos the Goddess made for us to enjoy, and all the boring parts she didn't."

The two men dropped the chain into Danika's trembling palm.

Then, there were hugs and laughter and quite a lot of really strong cider all around. "It isn't any kind of slavery at all, is it?" said Danika quietly to Rose. "That's what they always told us, the reason to fear the Discordians, because they made all men into slaves."

"They're not slaves. You've seen the way people are here. They're as hyper as hell, crazy even. And Theed runs loose all over the planet. I suppose he must have a partner from time to time, but it doesn't look like he's required to have one."

"I'm not," Theed said, coming up next to them, and handing Rose another cup of cider. "No one is, really, but it's hard for outsiders to see that. All they see is a bunch of people running around with collars. It doesn't occur to them that we're just indulging in the humorous little fantasy that a man on a leash behaves better. It's a joke, Danika, in a lot of ways. Everything here is. Except that we do expect you to look after Ro. No compromises, 'cuz he needs you."

"Thank you," she said. "I'll do everything I can." She gave an impish little smile, as though she had suddenly caught on. "But if he's out of control, I probably won't stop him."

"Know the feeling," said Rose, and yawned widely, her jaw cracking.

"I came over to tell you that you two are being escorted to the temple tonight. You're staying with Fred in her rooms. We follow Earth bridal customs in that regard. The groom doesn't get to see his bride until he lifts her veil."

"Theed," said Rose softly, "you're a sweetheart, but I don't want to marry you."

He laughed. "It's going to be fine, Rose, I promise you. The Doctor promises. Ro promises."

"I promise, too," said Fred, taking her hand. "Let's get back so you two can get some sleep. You've a long day tomorrow if we want to have a major event tomorrow night."

"Fine," said Rose, petulantly. "But I'm going to look ghastly in a wedding dress."

" _Not possible,_ " came the Doctor's floating thought. " _Not even a little bit._ "

*?*

The Doctor sat up thinking late into the night. He had no plans for sleeping, because Rose's face the moment before he'd kissed her - or not kissed her, as it turned out - was going to haunt him, both the very next time he slept and, quite possibly, for the rest of his life. It hurt that he hadn't been able to resist his desire. It hurt that he hadn't been able to complete it, if he wasn't going to resist it. But what hurt the most, what ached all the way to the center of his soul, was that in his mind he could see her, snogging Theed.

What if this insane wedding plot didn't come off like it was supposed to do? What if Tiff never interrupted, or interrupted too late? Then, they would come blithely to the part in the ceremony where the bride and groom were supposed to kiss, and it would be Theed who looked her in the eyes, Theed who lowered his head to her face, Theed who tasted her pale pink lips, caused them to part under his amorous assault, thrust his tongue inside her mouth, wrapped his arms around her soft, delightful body. Theed whose single human heart would race in time to her own. Theed who would hold her hand.

He imagined himself standing there, gazing coldly down on all of this, watching her marry and trying with all his might not to hate her groom when he had loved the man just hours ago. The lonely god, alone, again.

And then, what if she liked it? Because he had never kissed her properly, never held her, never touched her like that. Only rarely did he even let on that he might like to do. No, he had pushed her away, told her no, deserted her, come back to her battered and heart-broken and let her mend him as only she could do, pushed her away again, flirted but never acted. He had never told her what she meant to him, but what if, what if, in all of this glorious, exquisite nightmare, Theed managed to feel it, show it, say it?

If he had been in the TARDIS, he would be throwing things, because it only got worse from there.

It would be Theed whose naked body found solace between her fair thighs, Theed who buried himself within her golden, giving warmth, Theed who took her to heaven, and spent himself inside her. Theed who heard her whisper that she loved him. Theed who got to reply.

His brain rebelled against those fantasy images, all so familiar, but all so wrong because that man who looked like him wasn't him, would never be him.

He imagined now, going back to Jackie, alone, to tell the poor woman that he hadn't lost her daughter, honest. He'd just managed to accidentally marry her off to his doppelganger, and could Jackie please forgive him, because she'd actually decided to stay with her husband. Or make that worse. Rose and Theed would want to travel with him, hand in hand, while he stood there, bitter and jealous, the alien outsider to their perfect, human love. Knowing, every time he saw them, that he might could have been there, in her heart, in her arms, in her bed, but for the want of three little words.

A hand touched his shoulder, startling him from the sleep he hadn't even realized he'd fallen into. He looked up and found Theed smiling down at him with concern. Those three little words would cancel the nightmare, and he'd never have to live in or even imagine again a world where it was true. So he sighed, ran his hands through his hair, and said them. "I'm marrying Rose."

"Glad you figured that out," said Theed. "I'm going back to bed. Did you know you snore?"

*?*

"What's all this?" Rose asked Fred as she was escorted into the High Priestess's chambers. They were feminine and delicate and simple, beautiful in a way that Rose recognized, not anywhere near as ornate as the rest of the temple.

Fred chuckled. "This is my little hideaway," she said. "We weren't... erm, you might not believe this, but we were really, really normal before Ro was chosen, we were chosen. We lived in a dingy little flat on the smaller continent, just our mum, because our dad died when the twins were babies."

"Believe it or not, I know exactly what you mean. I worked in a shop."

"Made biscuits to sell in the street fairs."

"Played an elf at Christmas one year just to get my mum a Christmas present."

"Same thing - served as an acolyte for a month during New Years. Exactly the same thing. Goddess, we are sisters."

Danika stood in the doorway, looking completely lost. "I was born to privilege," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," said Fred kindly. "At eighteen, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. At nineteen, I had charge of an army and the spiritual responsibility for a whole planet. By twenty, those daft old experts considered me some kind of military and religious genius."

"I was knighted by Queen Victoria and banished from my planet when I was twenty," said Rose. "Forget sisters, we're bloody twins."

They both laughed. "Still don't want to marry Theed, though," said Rose, after they had calmed down. "He's beautiful, don't get me wrong. God... erm, Goddess knows they're all gorgeous."

Danika laughed, now. "That's the truth, if I ever heard it," she declared, fondly.

"Eew," said Fred, and giggled. "Just, ew."

Rose fell off her chair, she was laughing so hard. "We can set you up with the Doctor, make it a triple wedding."

Fred rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you'd make it through that one. Besides... ew."

"You can get married?" Danika asked.

"No," said Fred, "not that I'd want to do, you understand." She smirked. "But I don't want for company, if that's what you're thinking."

Rose giggled, then hiccuped. "Bugger, too much cider. Look, I'm going to bed, and when I wake up in the morning, this will all be a dream, and I won't have been told I have to marry anybody and the Doctor who used to glare holes in people for looking at me won't be planning to practically escort me down the aisle."

Fred stood up and kissed her on the forehead. "I know it's going to be fine, Rose. Chaos will handle everything."

"Thanks," said Rose. "I think."

The day went by in a flurry of preparations. She was fitted for her dress at first light, forced to stand half-naked on a chair for half an hour while three wizened old witches wandered around her with tape measures and commented on her relative child-bearing ability, the perfect size of her breasts, the color of her hair and narrowness of her waist. Danika, on the chair next to hers, endured similar treatment with enviable grace, though the girl was so thin, she was painful to look at.

Fred seemed to think the same thing, because she turned up every ten minutes with samples from the planned banquet, making Rose try a bit and Danika eat twice as much. "I'll be sick," Danika suggested after sampling the wine punch. "I haven't eaten this much in... never mind." She stopped talking at Rose's expression of outright horror, and changed her tack. "We didn't have a lot of supplies, you know," she defended softly.

"It's fine," said Rose, kindly. "I understand. But you're going to need your strength. You, at least, have a grand night to look forward to."

"And you won't?" asked Danika.

"Theed's my friend, Danika, not my lover."

"But the Doctor? I saw..."

"He's not my lover, neither." She searched for a quick way to change the subject when Fred came in with some small sausage rolls. "Got a question, Sis," she said. "What's with the mirrors?"

"What mirrors?"

"The ones over the beds. All the beds. Everywhere."

"I wondered the same thing," Danika agreed and helped herself to a roll. "This is good," she exclaimed and had three more in rapid succession. It seemed they had finally found Danika's food weakness.

"Oh. Custom. The human body is an art form of the highest measure, and the mirror helps one appreciate that. Besides, Discordianism is kinky, sometimes."

Rose grinned and tried a sausage roll.

There were flowers to look at, fabric to admire, jewelry to pick out from the vast collection belonging to the goddess manifest. "There's some pieces that belong to the station, if you understand, and some that will belong to you, personally. And each bride usually leaves something precious to her for the collection when her husband steps down. Do you want earrings, Rose?"

"No," replied Rose, softly. "I never take these off, nor my necklace."

"Where'd you get them?" Danika asked, gesturing at the earrings. "They're pretty."

"Picked 'em up in Wales, the summer before I left school. I'll never take them off. Not ever."

The bridal customs, having little to do with the bowling alley, actually, were explained by an older priestess who seemed to think she was dealing with blushing virgins. The customs didn't seem much like Earth's either, Rose thought, as she chewed her lip, trying to avoid giggling while the old woman explained the events after the wedding to the two, who stared at her with identical, deliberately vapid expressions.

They left the priestess and looked at each other, blinking furiously and trying not to be the first to crack. Rose's lips twitched. Danika grinned. Then, they both burst out laughing and didn't stop until Fred rejoined them. When they told her what exactly had happened, Fred rolled her eyes and chuckled ruefully.

There were baths to be taken, fragrances to be selected, perfuming to be performed. Fred taught Rose this as an elegant art form. Danika, it seemed, knew it to some extent, though there were some places she hadn't been taught before.

Then, there was the final fitting. Both women had been dressed in robes of palest gold, Rose all tricked out in crimson details, Danika in shades of emerald. Their hair had been elaborately styled, for all that Rose would have thought Danika's too short for such a thing. Her own blonde locks had been carefully separated and loosely curled, then pinned to her head with a fine gold and ruby tiara. Curls spilled down to frame her face, and a delicate fringe of beadwork had been secured to the tip end of one curl, to be cut after the ceremony, the Malaclypse equivalent, perhaps, of the bouquet, since it was meant to be tossed for luck. Rose had been assured that an alternate strand would actually be thrown, the original to be kept.

Rose looked at herself in the mirror, wishing the Doctor could see how beautiful she looked right now. " _I can_ ," whispered his voice, and she felt his presence in her mind for the first time all day. " _I'll see you soon, my Rose._ "

There was a marriage contract to be signed. Fred assured her it wasn't valid anywhere except on Malaclypse, and that Fred had full authority to annul it even here if necessary.

Then, after all the work and all the waiting, it seemed as if the day had come to an end much, much too quickly. She wasn't even half ready, not in her mind, and she was suddenly being escorted into the temple proper, to meet her groom and hopefully, just hopefully, spring the trap.


	23. Enough Rope

"It's like this," Theed explained to the carefully selected group of honor guards, who just happened to include the one they were sure was the traitor. "There's to be a wedding this evening; the Polyfather will be married to the goddess manifest. An official proclamation has been issued and the media will be much in view, as will the citizenry. Plus, we have the escaped prisoner, who may turn up to try to disrupt the ceremony."

"Two brides will be wed tonight," the Doctor continued, "as two brothers will be married to them in a double ceremony. Your responsibility is to ensure that everything goes exactly as it is expected to do."

"We have a vast amount of preparations to complete today," Ro finished. "Dustin, your unit will be with us." He looked at the suspect. "Penn, as a loyal member of the household guard, you will take the second, smaller unit and ensure that our green-haired invader doesn't get into the temple."

The guards left and the brothers sat back and smirked at each other. They were in full confusion mode, dressed absolutely identically, even the Doctor's and Ro's distinctive collars out of sight. As soon as they were sure that the traitor, Penn, had his unit in place, they would begin the second, more covert part of the plan.

Fred's covert plan, however, involved being as visible and overt as humanly - or Time Lordly - possible. So they started their day with breakfast at the high table, while all the courtiers looked on.

Sir Hedrin, the small Priest, sat beside them and they indiscriminately passed him the details of the treaty that needed to be drawn up with the Greyfaces, tossing out the wording one phrase at a time in rapid succession and stopping to argue frequently.

"But Polyfather," said Ro to the Doctor, "we can't offer Theed to the Greyface leader to marry his daughter."

"It's fine, Polyfather," the Doctor replied. "I won't mind marrying her if it brings peace. What do you think, Polyfather?" he asked Theed.

"Listen, Theed," said Theed, "it's a very simple thing. If I marry the Greyface girl, who will the Doctor marry?"

"I'm the Doctor," said Ro. "I'll marry whoever I have to to save this world."

"You're not the Doctor," said the Doctor. "He's the Doctor."

"I am not, Polyfather," said Theed. "You're the Doctor."

"I don't want to be the Doctor," he replied, amused to have a moment of utter honesty in this massive deception. "I'll be Theed. You be the Doctor, and he can be the Polyfather."

Theed laughed. "I already was the Polyfather, wasn't I?"

"No. You're the Doctor."

"Please," whimpered Sir Hedrin, "you're giving me a headache."

"Right, then," said the Doctor. "Just write that Robert, etc, Polyfather blah, blah, will accept Kadin Karissa for his brother's bride, provided that the same Karissa gives her consent..."

"Fully," added Ro.

"And of her own free will," continued Theed. "We'll also want ten pounds of jelly babies."

"You can't get jelly babies from Greyfaces, Polyfather," said Ro.

"Yes I can. I'm the Doctor, and I'll have jelly babies if I want them."

"You're not the Doctor," said the Polyfather. "I'm the Doctor."

"But I want to be the Doctor," whined the Doctor. "Why do I have to be the Polyfather?"

"Because," said Theed. "I'm the Polyfather and I said so, that's why."

"But my headache?" reminded Hedrin.

"Right, sorry," they said in unison. "Next paragraph."

*?*

After breakfast, they went out into the city for several reasons. The first, of course, was to continue confusing as many people as possible.

"Excuse me, Polyfather," said a man whose shirt bore a huge pink badge reading "Irritating Leech from Press Agency Two". "Can you tell us more about the event happening tonight?"

"Certes will be in conjunction with Beta Bootes," the Doctor replied.

"The war between Phlox and Rhymistra will be resolved amicably when the respective leaders get drunk together and have a good shag to get it out of their systems," added Ro.

"Your socks will want washing, as you've been wearing them for three days," finished Theed.

"Eew," said the other two, grinning identical, wolfish grins.

The female photographer who was holding the leech's chain snapped a picture of the manic threesome and led her snickering charge away. The Doctor shouted "Nice shirt," after her, since he'd noticed the decal of "Shoots first, shoots again later."

"We're evil," Theed said quietly.

"Not usually," said Ro.

"No, we're using confusion and surprise, my personal favorite weapons."

They both looked at him, quite bewildered. "What?" he demanded, feeling hurt. "Do I look like the sort of person who wanders around with a weapons cache the size of Villengard?"

"No. I just thought you sort of out-smarted them," said Theed.

"Is that Rose's job then?" asked Ro.

He laughed merrily. "Just don't tell her," he confided with a wink.

*?*

At the end of the street, they ducked into a small jewelry shop.

"No," said the jeweler finally, their act completely failing to disconcert him in the slightest. "I've never seen this one before." He sighed. "It would appear to be very old, probably dates back to the first age of the colonial period. But it's in such exquisite condition, and, if it fits you so well, I would suggest we simply match it to an appropriate cuff, if it's to be used in tonight's ceremonies."

"Yes, that will do nicely," said the Doctor.

"Wait." The jeweler turned it around again, opened it, and looked inside, his eyes wide and his face white. "This bears the personal seal of Malaclypse the Youngest, the founder of the colony," he said, reverently.

"Well," said the Doctor, "looks like I have been here before."

"This was given as a gift to a stranger who saved the colony, five hundred years ago. The matching cuff is still in the royal archive. You may have seen it, which ever one of you is the Polyfather."

"Delicate, lots of rubies?" asked Ro, smiling indulgently as the jeweler nodded.

"I've seen it," said Theed, just to be sure the act kept going.

"Yes, it has roses etched into it, as well," said the jeweler. "They may have faded with time, but they should still be visible as it has always been well kept."

"He comes in twice a year to clean and inspect everything," said Ro.

"Sort of royal jeweler, slash curator," added Theed.

"It has been my honor and the honor of my fathers before me to complain vigorously at the state of things in the royal collection," said the jeweler with a whimsical smile. "You'll want a new chain for it, as the one designed for this purpose has long since been moved to the current royal piece, The Apple Collar."

Theed grinned. "Knight him."

"Good idea," agreed Ro.

*?*

After the jeweler had been inducted into the Golden Apple Corps, POEE, they moved on to the clothiers, where things were immediately complicated. "I can't tell you apart," complained the thin, wiry young man who had been sent to help them.

"No problem, neither can we," said the Doctor, waggling his eyebrows. "Just fit all three of us."

"But which of you are getting married?"

"Two of us are getting married," said Ro. "The third's giving away and participating in the handfasting. There's no need to worry about who to dress what way. The girls can tell us apart with no trouble at all."

"Wait," exclaimed the Doctor, "handfasting?"

"Yeah," said Theed. "Why?"

"Old custom, handfasting," he said, softly, feeling so very far away from this gentle world all of the sudden. "Persists in many cultures and planets across several galaxies, both ancient and modern. Even very old societies that are very gone..." He let his head drop into his hands, and paced up and down the room with rapid, nervous steps. Theed and Ro caught him when they were well out of earshot of the young man and his staff.

"Are you ok?" Ro asked, kindly.

"I'll be fine," he agreed. "I just didn't realize it was going to look like this, to me."

"Like what?" asked Theed.

"Like the real thing."

*?*

As he put on his wedding clothes, the Doctor took a few minutes to try to remember his first wedding. He seemed to recall he had been married to Sarah Jane two or three times, for a few minutes, and he rather thought Romana had asked him to marry her once, but he had never been sure with her. He even remembered, quite gleefully, that he'd been married to Turlough one time, much to the young Trion's vicious annoyance. Hadn't amused him much, at the time, either, but years gave you perspective on that sort of thing, and it had been a silly place, a silly situation, and a very silly Doctor to have fallen into that one anyway.

But the first, the original, the one that had surely been Gallifreyan, to some Time Lady whose name or face he could never recall, that one never ever let him remember, as if it had been blotted out. Sometimes if he concentrated, very very hard, he could almost gather the vague impression of a young girl with pretty eyes. As always, it never came into focus. Even 900 years ago, when he first left Gallifrey behind, he could never remember where Susan came from. She had come about in the traditional manner, he was sure, or traditional for Gallifreyans. Born of selected DNA strands, she had been related to a number of important people, but he was her closest relative, biologically her grandfather, when he had no memory of having been a parent to her parents.

She was gone now, lost in ages passed, her choices compelling her to live out her life with her mortal, human husband. She had never known what he had done to their people, what had happened to their world. Remembering that, he was absurdly grateful to the human she had left him for - not only for making her so very happy, but for preventing her from seeing what he would become.

He thought, then, of Miranda, and doubted again that she existed in this time line. It might have been nice to have his daughter here. She passed through his life so quickly, the little blonde girl born to a race long dead that, at the time, he couldn't remember. The only two of their kind in a hostile world, he had brought her up to peace, and probably destroyed her when he destroyed his planet so thoroughly.

Finally, his thoughts drifted inevitably to Rose. She had come to him, a golden light from the shadows he wove around himself. She had single-handedly dragged him, kicking and screaming, from the brink of self-destruction. She was the one who never blamed him, the one with the well of compassion deep enough even for a lost Dalek, the one who held his hand, the one he called the best. She was also the one who ended the Time War, the one who had actually known him to the very fibers of his being, yet still insisted he be kept safe, and still called him hers. His new regeneration was her work, though she couldn't know that, a pretty boy delighted with life and looking young enough to hold the hand of a twenty year old soft and delicate beauty.

He could see her now, in his mind's eye, smiling at her own reflection in an ornate mirror. She was always beautiful, but now she snatched his breath away, dressed as she was in robes so like a Gallifreyan bride's that he had to remind himself sharply that Gallifrey was gone and she would never see it. She looked both young and timeless and her eyes glittered with golden starlight and quiet wonder. How had he gone so long without touching her, anyway, without seeing her at all sometimes? And she wondered, and how could she, what he would think, if he would find her as lovely as she thought herself. Far more so, for she was all the light in all the Universe, and the stars all orbited around her, as far as he was concerned.

He loved her.

" _I'll see you soon, my Rose,_ " he thought to her, and was delighted that she shivered in response.

Send the Cybermen, bring down old Omega, call up the long dead Master, the Sontarans, an entire fleet of Daleks with murder on their minds. Summon forth any enemy he had ever had or any enemy he would ever make. Bring on Captain Jack and his weirdness that made the Doctor want to run, drag in Rassilon himself and the dark power that burned in the sleeping god's soulless eyes. Send the entire planet of Gallifrey and the ghosts of all the lost. Let them all stand between him and her, let everything in the entire Universe insist he give her up. He would gladly walk through all of them, leave the TARDIS standing open, encouraging his every step, without even the sonic screwdriver, without a regeneration left, just to take her hand.

He was never letting her go, not ever.

*?*

Rose and Danika were paraded through the crowd, golden veils over their faces, and everyone touching their robes in a gesture that was obviously both ceremonial and traditional. Music played softly over hidden speakers in the bowling alley area, and they were led by Fred up and down each and every lane.

Rose had never been more nervous in her life, and she didn't know why. This was a lark, not serious, nothing more than a blip on the radar of her mad life with the Doctor. They would be laughing about this one over chips next week, telling Jackie about it in joking, sniggering voices. "Oh, yeah, and I got Rose married to my alien twin," the Doctor would say. "Well, I was the alien, they were all as human as you come." And Rose would joke that they were identical in every possible way, implying something that would not happen with a giggling innuendo. Jackie would explode, and they would laugh at her while the Doctor ducked her slaps. It brought a smile to Rose's lips, but didn't do a thing to calm her nerves.

This felt serious. Maybe it was the quiet respect in Fred's tone while she chanted a hymn to Eris, maybe it was the hushed seriousness of the crowd, maybe it was Danika's joyful anticipation of the whole thing, but Rose couldn't shake the sensation that she had never done anything more important in her entire life. After all, one of the brides would walk away from this a woman wed for life. And Rose Tyler was one of the brides.

They finally ended the procession upstairs, in the large, ornate chamber on a small dais at the feet of the statue of the man who had apparently been Emperor of the United States. Fred opened the ceremony with, unsurprisingly, a joke. Then, Danika stepped forward, expected to proclaim her intentions.

After her, it was Rose's turn. She was shaking in her delicate shoes, worried that this would get completely out of hand, nervous that Tiff would turn up, more afraid that he wouldn't.

All at once, that eerie calm settled over her as she accepted that it did matter, to her at least. This was the most important event in her life because she, Rose Tyler, was getting married. After this, she would travel on with the Doctor, forever, as she promised and as she intended to do. There would never be another wedding for her because he would never marry her. It didn't matter who the groom was, because he was a fixture, just as she was, random people selected by the laws of Chaos that surrounded the Doctor. She would make the most of it, because the groom she wanted would never stand beside her, and she would never be the right bride.

So today would be her day, and she would pretend with all her heart.

She smiled, because this would be the first and only time she would ever get to use the titles she had selected for herself, at Fred's insistence and in accordance with tradition. "I declare before all this company that I am Rose Tyler, Banished Knight of Victoria's Court, Timorous Beastie of all things Pink and Yellow, Friend to Things that are Quite Surprising, and Companion-Rescuer of the Lord of Time. I come today to be chosen bride, and I summon my husband to come forward that we may be joined in the eyes of Eris and all this company. I declare now that I am unwed and of good humor, and suitable enough in the eyes of the Goddess."

The crowd parted then for three men, all dressed in identical cream and gold robes, a group of three small acolytes before them, bearing jewelry on tiny, golden pillows. From here, she couldn't tell them apart, for they all walked in exactly the same measured, slow steps, and they all held their heads high and surveyed the scene with identical, gentle gazes. Even as they approached, she wasn't certain, for their eyes all blazed with well-banked intensity, nothing like the Doctor's usual fire, nothing like the stars in his eyes showing for all the world to see.

The three separated as they reached Fred, one going to Danika's side, another coming to hers, and the third joining Fred, to offer her two long, golden chains.

Rose reached out her hands to accept her groom's. He smiled tenderly and took them, raising them to his lips to kiss them both. She was shocked beyond measure to discover that the golden veil kept her from seeing who she was marrying, but the touch of his hand suggested something she was quite unable to believe. Surely, surely, her imagination was the cause. There was no way she was right. She was just making it up, making herself believe.

She let her fingers flicker to his wrist, even as Fred and the other twin approached and lifted her veil. She closed her eyes, wanting to believe it just one more minute, at least until she could get her hand near his pulse and discover...

She was losing her mind, there was no doubt about that. Throbbing with unusual rapidity beneath her questing fingers was the unmistakably twinned beating of a double pulse. She opened her eyes, hoping against hope, and looked up, chewing on her lip and afraid, even now, to believe.

The Doctor's eyes blazed back at her, all dark and intense and so very, very real.

"My Rose," he whispered, his voice and eyes brim full of emotion so deep she could have tumbled into them and fallen, safe, forever.

If only this was the real thing…


	24. Chosen Bride

"Who comes to be wed to this woman, Danika?" declaimed Fred in a voice like thunder.

Ro gave his name, and his titles, and turned to face the crowd, his bride's hand firmly inside his own, their arms outstretched between them.

"Who comes to be wed to this woman, Rose?" she demanded now, and the Doctor gave her a quick wink.

"The Doctor, Last of the Time Lords, Final Scion and Seal of Gallifrey, Keeper Perpetual of the Legacy of Rassilon, Defender of the Laws of Time, Ka Faraq Gatri, the Oncoming Storm."

Every title he had given was real, his own, earned over the course of a very long life, lived in endless pursuit of true justice. He wasn't playing, wasn't making anything up. Rose gasped, astonished that he would come this far, do this much, and claim these things he regularly avoided, just to stand at her side in this place. When he turned from her, she could still feel him, the storm that normally raged only in the most dreadful danger whipping around her now, filling her with his overwhelming presence, his titanic power. Something had changed since last she saw him, somehow. He was the Lord of Time, his power plain for all to witness, and he had come here of his own free will to marry her. Simple Rose Tyler.

" _There was never anything simple about you, Rose,_ " came his thought, with such authority that no one would dare question it.

It was almost enough to drive her to her knees.

Somehow, though, somehow, his towering strength was feeding her, was there for her use. He was supporting her but also leaning on her. She was the anchor that held the Storm at bay, hers was the foot that touched the ground to keep them both upon it. Her mortal heart, beating in her breast, set the rhythm of the chaos that surrounded them. He was with her, around her, inside her. For this moment, at least, he was hers.

"My Doctor," she whispered, and clutched tighter to his hand.

Fred brought the single long golden chain to Ro and Danika, and wound it at their wrists, then wrapped it in a braid like fashion all the way to their elbows. She used no knots or clasps, but they looked sturdy and steady. She turned then and did the same to Rose and the Doctor, and he smiled down at her the whole time. She was seeing unfathomable things in his eyes, and time itself was playing havoc around them, now racing, now slowing to a near halt. Fred worked, unaware of the hurricane force she was binding to Rose's arm, completely oblivious to their silent interaction.

She could not see what was happening, where Fred went next, because everything was caught up in the Doctor's burning eyes. Now they were brown, now blue, now green, now silver, and always with gold behind them. Her mind could scarcely comprehend what she was seeing, what she was feeling, but it was happening and she found herself shockingly equal to it. Every single thing she saw, she absorbed and understood and loved. Surely, she was imagining it, surely she was making it all up.

Fred stepped up to her free arm and took it gently, then reached around her and and caught her elbow. Theed was there as well, at the Doctor's side, his hand on the Doctor's elbow, and all at once, she was tugged sharply away from him. Once, twice, thrice, five times in all, the siblings tugged them apart and still the chain bound them and still their hands held fast.

Then Theed came around and unbound the chain and held it out for Rose to take. Fred again stepped forward, and Theed returned to the Priestess's side.

"Do you take this man, then, to be yours? He is but a man, and will fail you. He is but a man and will make mistakes. He is but a man and will be annoying. He will leave the seat up, he will forget your birthday, he will argue about your family. He will be insulting and silly and child-like and wrong. Do you take him, still, having thus been warned?"

"I do," said Rose, whimsically, being rather used to most of it, though they'd have to have a discussion about the seat if they ever had to go domestic. From the other side of the room, she heard Danika's voice reply the same, though she sounded quite shocked to hear such things.

"Do you take this woman, then, to be yours? She is but a woman, and will hurt you. She is but a woman and will make mistakes. She is but a woman and will be vindictive. She will redecorate your home, she will lose her youthful beauty, she will drag you to her parent's house with no warning. She will be angry and frightened and deceitful and wrong. Do you take her, still, having thus been warned?"

"I do," said the Doctor, and waggled his eyebrows at her while Ro proclaimed his own vow in a ringing, relieved voice.

The children with the pillows came forward now, and Rose could see that the collars rested on two of them. The third bore two cuffs. One was the obvious mate of the Apple Collar she had helped secure to Ro's neck last night. The second was sprinkled with rubies and small cut emeralds and sapphires. She could make out the delicate engravings of roses, looking like they bore the jewels in their opening blossoms. It was, apparently, the perfect mate of the jeweled collar the Doctor had been wearing since this adventure started. Had it only been four days? She felt like her whole life had been lived in this time. Certainly, her whole life had been changed. She thought of how far she had come, as they waited for Ro and Danika, how so few days, surely mere moments to the Doctor at least, had brought them so very, very far from their former, secretive selves.

She had been taught this bit carefully this morning. She reached over and took the jeweled collar in her hands and released her hold on the Doctor. He stood tall as she walked around him, carefully securing the clasp at the back of his neck. "With this gift, I thee wed. With this jewelry and this gold, I pledge thee my love. And with my body, I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow."

The Doctor stepped to the pillow now, and took the bejeweled cuff. He spoke the same oath in clear, ringing tones, making her blush to the very tips of her toes in the seductive way his voice wrapped around the words, making them sound like temptation itself. He secured the cuff at her wrist and it fit, perfectly, as if it were her arm it had been designed for in the first place.

Fred raised her arms above her head now, and gave a final instruction, the last step in the five step marriage of the Malaclypse wedding ceremony. "Thus you are shackled one to another, so you'd better make the best of it. Have fun and find joy in each other, for life is chaos and the world is strange, and to love one another is our best comfort when everything else is weird. Life is short, and you'll never get out of it alive, so be good companions, good helpmates, good friends. Be honest, and true, and constant. Now, I instruct you to kiss one another, that your marriage may be blessed in the eyes of Eris and of this company."

Rose supposed, when the Doctor's face drew close to hers, that she should have expected it. Before their lips met, mere micro-seconds before she got that kiss that was haunting her dreams and her wishes, Tiff dropped from the statue to the dais and snatched her away from him, a knife at her throat, twisting her arm behind her back.

"I have had just a little too much of you," the Doctor informed him coldly.

"I've had more than enough of you," replied Tiff. "Who the hell are you? You're no brother to these two savages, for all you look like them, so where did you come from?"

"Were you late?" Rose asked, trying to find away to step on his foot without letting him know she was going to do it. The Doctor shook his head at her slowly and she remained absolutely still.

"I told everyone who I was," the Doctor said. "If you missed that bit, it's not my fault, 'cuz I'm not going through it again. Let Rose go. This is your last chance, Plar Tiff. You can walk away and submit yourself to the justice of my brother and his people, or you can deal with my justice. You won't like it."

"I have a mission for my people to capture that barbarian savage and then I find out they've got some kind of technological advantage, and I'm taking that back to my leader. You and the girl are mine." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pistol, a mechanical one, not a laser one this time. Dropping the knife, he held the pistol to Rose's head and cocked a bullet into the chamber with an ominous click. The sonic screwdriver could have still fixed it, but with Rose in such immanent danger, the Doctor didn't dare reach for it.

"Clear the temple," Ro ordered.

"No!" Tiff shouted.

"You can take my family hostage again, if it suits you, Tiff, but you are not endangering any more of my people. They leave, now."

"Please, Tiff," said Rose. "Let the noncombatants out. Don't you have enough blood on your hands? Besides, you can't control this many people. No one matters that much."

"The royal family stays," Tiff agreed reluctantly, if only because he saw sense in her words.

"Go on," Theed reinforced. "Get the children to safety."

"The Priestess stays, too," Tiff added, and jerked on Rose's arm as if for insurance.

"Dustin," Fred called, "if you'd be so good as to arrest Penn on your way out before he makes a run for it? Thank you."

Tiff's face went completely white, making his green hair stand out like grass in a snowstorm.

"You see, Tiff?" said the Doctor, calmly. "It's a trap. We knew you were coming, we knew about your little accomplice. I didn't know you'd be quite this dangerous; if I had, you'd already have been dealt with, my way. You're alone now. Your master died in space, killed himself and all your friends. There's no one else left in your entire rebellion and you've got no back up plan. Let Rose go and tell me what you want."

"I want you all to die," he replied, coldly. "If you killed all my people, I will do the same to you."

"We didn't kill your people," said Theed. "We went to Degava's ship. Every single person on board had been poisoned, all of them except Degava. His body was still warm, and the gun was in his hands."

"He killed them," the Doctor continued relentlessly. "Did you think he would protect them, when he had fallen from power? Did you think he would protect you or help you? He was trying to kill everyone on this world, you included, without any sort of mercy or discretion. The children, Tiff, the babies, the women, the innocent, who just want to live their lives. He was concerned only about power, only about revenge, and he murdered three hundred and fifty of his own people, and how many more besides, just to take one more shot at this planet. Now, let her go, and tell me what it will take to get you out of this alive."

"No!" he shouted. "I'm loyal, I understand that sacrifices have to be made!"

"They don't," said Ro, "not like that. That wasn't war, you fool, that was insanity."

"Will you never shut up?" Tiff demanded. "I'll kill her!"

"If you try," said the Doctor, and all the coldness of vast, empty space seemed to radiate from his tall, slender form, "then I will make you pay in ways that are utterly unspeakable. There are horrors in this Universe you cannot even begin to imagine, walking, waking nightmares, and then there's the thing the nightmares have nightmares about, and that's me. And I'll deal with you personally if you don't LET ROSE GO!" The last three words were spoken in the voice of the storm, a thundering command issued with such power behind it that even Tiff could not help but obey.

He did not obey well, though. He flung Rose forward at the Doctor, leveled the pistol at Ro, and pulled the trigger. Danika shrieked in wordless terror and flung herself at her new husband, knocking him to the ground. Before he even landed, she jerked and cried out sharply, her hand going over her chest. She fell to her knees, bright blood blossoming on her delicate robes. The Doctor lowered Rose safely to the ground, then dropped to his knees next to Danika where Ro now clutched her body to his chest.

Theed raced across the dais, snatched up the knife Tiff had dropped and flung it with deadly accuracy. It did not hit where Theed had been aiming, because Tiff's erratic course took him around the statue of Mal-2 and out of the direct path. However, it did slide with a sickening sound right through the hand clutching the pistol, which fell to the floor with an echoing clatter.

Rose pulled herself from the floor, prepared to run after him, but Fred, her eyes wild and furious, her hands clenched and her face stark white, stood in the way. Looking more like the depictions of the mad Goddess than Her Priestess, she looked in Tiff's direction, and spoke a single word.

The marble bowling ball sitting on the knee of the statue of Omar came loose from its place and plunged toward the ground. Tiff had only a second to look up at it, shocked terror plain in his face, before it landed on him with the nauseating, revolting, god-awful sound of shattering bone. He managed a single, horrific squeak before life deserted his body. His eyes went empty and blank, fixing them with a perpetual accusing stare.

"Behold the wrath of the Goddess," Fred whispered. Rose ran to her side as she collapsed, screaming, to her knees.

"C'mon, Danika," demanded the Doctor, "stay with us, princess." He had ripped her robes away from the wound and was trying without much success to staunch the flow of blood, just to see what needed to be done.

"Ro," she whispered. The Doctor kept his feelings at the sound of her voice to himself.

"I'm here, princess," the Polyfather whispered. "Stay with me, Danika, don't leave me now."

"Sorry," she whispered. "Had to... had to..."

"Shhh," he ordered. "We'll talk about it when you're better."

"Had to make up for it," she said. "So sorry."

"I forgave you, Danika. I love you. Stay with me."

"Love you, too," she said, and then she closed her eyes.

Ro looked at the Doctor, his face desperate, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Please tell me you can help her."

The Doctor sighed. "I don't like how fast she's losing blood, and she wasn't healthy enough to begin with. But she's going to be fine, you can tell by her voice. It's just a graze, Ro. She's going to be bruised and she's going to need medical attention immediately if not sooner, but you're not a widower on your wedding day, despite your bride's heroics." He smiled. "Good job, princess," he told her fondly, even though she couldn't hear him.

Theed came bursting through the doors with a group of attendants in brightly patterned scrubs. He led them straight to Danika's side and, in a matter of minutes, they had the goddess manifest carefully bound up and transferred to an anti-grav stretcher one of them had pulled from his pocket. The Doctor eyed it for just a second with unabashed covetousness, then turned to more important things.

"Are you hurt?" he asked Rose softly as he knelt beside her and Fred.

"I'm fine," Rose said quietly. "My wrist hurts, but it'll be ok. But Fred's not. Can you help her?"

He smiled. "I'll do my best." He took her place next to the High Priestess and, in seconds, had her hypnotized asleep. "She needs rest," he said, "more than anything. She'll wake tomorrow, early afternoon at the soonest. I want you to be with her when she wakes, Rose. You too, Theed, if you can manage it."

"I'll go with her now," Theed said. "Are you coming over to the Hospital?"

"I think we should," said the Doctor. "I'll want to check on Ro."

"I think so. You're the only one I trust with the things going on in his head."

A second medical team and three of Fred's priests dealt with the bowling ball and the corpse, restoring the statue and removing the body with an efficiency that was swift, clinical, and almost frightening. The floor had apparently been designed to withstand the weight of this apparent weapon of last resort, so in moments, there was no sign of the horror that had interrupted the celebration, only wilting flowers and scattered detritus from the guests' hasty exit.

All at once, Rose and the Doctor were completely alone. "Now what?" Rose asked, utterly bewildered.

"What is it Rose?" the Doctor asked. "What's wrong?"

"Well, it isn't wrong, exactly. It's just, he didn't interrupt in time, did he?"

"Probably not," the Doctor agreed. "But then, Tiff had a lot of bad habits, so I don't particularly miss him."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to miss him," she agreed, rubbing at her wrist and frowning. "But he was supposed to interrupt at a certain time so the wedding didn't count, wasn't he?"

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"So we're married then," said the Doctor, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"'Fraid so," she agreed, unable, despite the horror of the past half hour, to keep the grin from her face.

"I never did get that kiss," he observed in that endearingly vague way he had, even toying with his ear.

"No," she agreed, practically breathless, "you didn't."

"I should probably do something about that," he said, and looked down at her, tenderly, his eyes burning into hers.

"Yeah," she breathed, "you should."

"Good," he said and, kissing her on the forehead, headed toward the doors.

For a second, Rose felt like her heart would break. Then, from the doorway, he turned toward her, that breath-taking grin on his face. "Should I call you Mrs. The Doctor?" he asked, holding his hands out for her.

"Nah," she replied, unable to keep from grinning back at him, unable to stop her feet from propelling her into his orbit. "We'll call you Doctor Tyler."

He laughed merrily and held her close. "Absolutely not," he said softly. Arm in arm, they left the temple to join their troubled family in their hour of need.


	25. Five Times Five

Rose slept alone that night in the big bed of Theed's borrowed room, in the royal suite that was quite empty except for herself. The Doctor had stayed at the Hospital with Ro, giving instantly obeyed orders that kept the Polyfather lightly sedated. They were still talking when Theed had Dustin escort Rose back to the palace. Rose rather suspected the Doctor would stay there all night, talking to the twins until they lost consciousness and then wandering the halls appropriating portable medical supplies for the TARDIS's haphazardly available Med Bay. She smiled whimsically as she curled up beneath the duvet, wondering if there had ever been a more thoroughly botched wedding night in the entire history of the world.

*?*

When he stumbled in, Theed on his arm, at day break, the Doctor didn't even think about it twice, just dropped the exhausted human into his own bed and went to find his Rose. He shucked his shoes and robes and pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms. Then he crawled in beside her and let her sleep, holding her, whispering the future to her in a language he never spoke, using the more elegant, precise words to paint impossible pictures of true eternity into her dreams.

She slept hard and woke late, and when she found him lying there with her, a delicate, inviting smile traced her lips. He grinned down at her. "Soon," he promised, though her sleep hazed mind probably couldn't imagine what was happening soon, or possibly even what "soon" meant.

They went to the hospital to wait for Fred to awaken, a still bleary-eyed Theed and the ever present Dustin for escorts. They stopped by Danika's room and found Ro sleeping quietly in a large chair at her side. Rose went over to him and kissed his cheek. He smiled in his sleep and curled up tighter, then opened his eyes and blinked at her. "Love you, baby sister," he told her.

"Love you, too," she said tenderly. "Go back to sleep, everything's fine."

He nodded and closed his eyes. Theed and the Doctor both went over and touched his hand briefly, then headed back into the hall to go to Fred's room.

They found the High Priestess in her own room, reclined in a nest of pillows on a politely curtained hospital bed. Privacy had been tantamount in the Doctor's orders for her, so when she fluttered her eyes and finally forced them open, she found only her family at her side, Rose holding on to her hand.

"Are you feeling better?" Rose asked her, tentatively.

"Dunno," she replied. "I can't tell if I'm feeling anything."

Theed stepped up beside her and kissed her cheek. The Doctor took her free hand and checked her pulse, then watched her eyes carefully as she followed his fingers in a series of quick, professionally detached tests. Then, he too leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Time heals," he promised.

"In more ways then one, apparently," she agreed with a small, fragile smile. "You're a good doctor, Doctor."

"Thank you," he said. "I do try. I'm not sure I always succeed, but I always try."

Rose leaned in closer to Fred. "Do you want to talk about it? They can stay or go, I'll listen, either way."

Fred sighed. "It's not really... I mean, you were there." She turned fitfully in her bed and faced Rose. "It's just, I've never killed anyone before. I know he would never have left my family in peace, and I know he tried to kill my brother, but I still didn't want to kill him."

Rose patted her hand. "Everyone in this room's killed someone, Fred," she said, continuing undaunted even as the Doctor shot her a startled look. She was surprised he didn't know she knew about that, but how could she have avoided the knowledge when he avoided everything about it so constantly? "We all would have preferred an easier choice, we all would have rather left them in peace. Just so you know that you're not alone. We love you, we'll be with you and listen if you want to talk and hold you if you want to cry."

Fred nodded, tears streaming down her face. "I just want to know what to do with the guilt."

Rose reached over and took the Doctor's hand. "Just think what it would have cost, Fred," she advised. "Remember that peace isn't always free. And be good to yourself. You're not responsible for other people's choices - they make their own and sometimes all you can do is protect the ones you love and the ones who are innocent any way you can."

The Doctor smiled. "Keep your loved ones close," he suggested, "to remember that you can't always keep them safe but you must always do whatever you can."

"And remember we love you, no matter what," finished Theed.

They talked to her for some time, probably hours, Rose thought, until Fred seemed much less in shock and much more herself. Ro came in half-way through the conversation to offer his opinion that his sister had been very brave in the defense of her oath to the people. He also offered sincere apologies for her sorrow, and held her while she cried out her gratitude for his life and Danika's promised speedy recovery.

They were getting ready to leave and head back to the palace when Fred stopped Rose. The men left them alone to talk for a few minutes. "He ruined your party, and I'm sorry," she said. "But I'm so relieved he didn't hurt you."

"Or Ro," Rose added. "Don't worry. I think I'll go wash my hair, though." She fingered the strand of beads, which were tucked into the wayward bun she'd thrown her hair into after a quick shower earlier.

"Just cut them loose," Fred suggested. "Your husband's meant to have them as a good luck charm."

Rose smiled. "My husband, such as he is, probably wouldn't know what to make of them."

"Your husband, such as he is, will probably be happy to have them. I'll see you in the morning. Let me know if you still need that annulment."

"Why wouldn't I?" Rose asked, a quiet melancholy stealing over her.

Fred grinned, impishly. "You tell me in the morning. Good luck."

"Why're you stuck here tonight, anyway?"

"Observation. There's more to worry about from a damaged mind than a damaged body here, you know. Danika'll be out before I am. Besides, I like the drugs. Pink elephants are very entertaining, you know."

Rose giggled and left the room, shaking her head.

Her husband, such as he was, was waiting for her and took her hand.

"Danika is asleep," said Ro. "I think I'd just as soon stay with her here, if you don't mind. Theed will look after you."

"Wistfully," Theed added with a grin. "C'mon, we'll just have an early supper delivered to the suite. We could all probably do with an early night."

Ro chuckled. "Do we have to draw him aside and offer manly advice?"

"You were s'posed to do that before the wedding," teased Rose.

The Doctor grinned at the twins, and shook his head. "Ah well," he said, eyes twinkling fit to start a small fire, "marry in haste, repent when Jackie Tyler chases you screaming 'round her kitchen table."

"That's going to be too funny," said Rose, her tongue between her teeth as she grinned. "I expect you'd better bring her flowers."

"And chocolate," suggested Theed. "Women like chocolate."

They said goodnight to Ro and went on to the royal suite by way of a small entrance at the side. "Stealth entrance," offered Theed, humorously. "Secret passageways and all that jazz."

"You'd be more likely to tell the world about a secret passage than the correct way," said Rose.

"Aw, and now you've figured us out completely."

Theed left after finishing dinner, ostensibly to deal with some things he'd neglected. Rose rather thought he was going to try to pick up the pretty lady who'd brought them their food and chided him for his table manners.

"Alone at last," the Doctor exclaimed wearily, kicked off his trainers, and shrugged out of his jacket.

"Now what?" she asked, plaintively, as they collapsed side by side onto the sofa.

He turned to her, dark eyes liquid and fathomless, and reached up to brush away a lock of her hair. "Why don't we talk about that?"

She nodded. "I'd like that," she said softly.

"We can keep going on like we have been doing. It's comfortable, as safe as we're going to get, and almost domestic in the simplicity of it. You like that, don't you? We're friends, the best of friends, aren't we?"

"Oh yes," she admitted.

"It's good what we have, isn't it? And we don't need to muck it up."

"No, that's true," she said with a resigned sigh.

The storm appeared now behind his eyes, glowing, burning. "But we've changed, haven't we? Time's changed us, Malaclypse has changed us, me touching your mind has changed us. I would have broken the link at any time, you know."

"I know. But you didn't."

"I couldn't," he said. "I could not do it. I could not find the will within myself to separate our minds. I liked having your presence with me, even when you were miles away. I delighted in knowing the things you were thinking, I thrilled at watching you master a skill so other-worldly no human has ever done better, I enjoyed knowing what you were feeling, sharing your ideas, seeing the world through your eyes like that. These few days have been the most brilliant days I have ever spent with you. And not just because I learned how your body responds to my touch, although I admit that makes me insufferably smug."

She smiled tenderly at him and brushed a hand along his jaw. "Everything makes you insufferably smug. Now, you're just smugger."

"That's not a word," he said with a laugh.

"Is too. I made it, just for you."

"You do a lot of things just for me," he said, tenderly.

"Yeah, well, you do a lot for me, too, Doctor. Don't try to say you don't, 'cuz I know going to see my mum isn't exactly your favorite thing. Or your second favorite. Or anywhere on your list of favorites, except maybe right above running for our lives while creepy things try to kill us."

"When I tell Jackie what I've done this time, I will be running for my life while a creepy thing tries to kill me," he said.

"I'll protect you," she teased.

"Thanks," he said. Then, his face got very close. His voice wrapped round her with flippancy and tenderness, a subtle seduction that was quiet and crazy and just so like him. "So, what do you think, Rose Tyler? Want to go half-shares in a one-of-a-kind time machine? She's had one careful owner, I think... and one barking mad, careless one, as you may have noticed." He lifted a hand to her face and held her breathless inches from him, bewitching her with his eyes. "We can go back from here, or we can go forward."

"If we go back," she said, resolutely restraining herself from throwing her arms around him and dragging him down to resolve the whole issue, "would you be happier? You know what'll happen. I'll get old and you'll still be beautiful."

"That's my excuse," he admitted. "Would I be happier? With you or without you..." He smiled at her then. "Know why I came back?"

"When?"

"That very first day, the first time I met you, well I say first, but it depends on your temporal perspective, doesn't it? But you remember, me, big ears, leather jacket, mad about you?"

She nodded, and chewed her lip at the inadvertent confession at the end of that sentence.

"I don't ask twice, Rose. But I had to, 'cuz it already hurt too much to lose you. So if I was going to try not to hurt without you, I'd have to never meet you in the first place."

"S'bit late for that," she said quietly, looking at her hands in her lap.

"Way too late," he agreed in that hazy soft voice, tucking his hand under her chin and lifting her eyes to meet his. "I made my choice," he said, "the night before. I'll let you think about it, give you time, all the time you need. I thought I might go get a shower, let you have some time to yourself. Is that ok?"

"Yeah. Think I'll go to Fred's room, she's got this bath tub you'd have to see to believe."

*?*

As the water pounded across his back, the Doctor knew he had done the right thing. His Rose must never have less than the very best and, if she didn't believe that was him, then he would never try to persuade her otherwise. Though he longed for her hands to touch him, though he ached for her arms to hold him, it had to be a choice she made of her own decided will.

He stepped out and dried and put on fresh jim-jams, and settled into a side chair to wait for her. If she decided to come from her bath and fall straight into the bed, leaving him sitting there alone, leaving him as alone as he had ever been, then he had to honor her decision though his every atom of his existence demanded that he at least try again.

Rose, only Rose, was the one he would always try again for, but not this time. This was their one moment, and everything that they were going to be together depended on what she wanted and nothing else.

When she entered, her step was so soft that he didn't even hear her. If it wasn't for that faint fragrance that was Rose, that soft mental presence that was her touch to their link, and a soft clicking sound he couldn't identify, he wouldn't have realized she was there.

But she would never be far away from him now, he knew that, as soon as she reached down and brushed her hand over his shoulder.

"Doctor," she whispered. "Fred said I'm to give this to you, for luck."

He reached out and took the small, brilliantly colored strand of beads, woven at one end with her own golden curl, and smiled. "Thank you," he said, and reached out to run a finger over the golden cuff she still wore. His collar was on the night stand, so a quick series of deft gestures put the cuff beside it.

"You never did get that kiss," she reminded him, in sweet, lingering tones. Her pale pink night dress was sheer and soft and looked like temptation itself, hugging her body in places, hiding others in a silky pink fog.

"You're right," he said and desperately, finally, took her into his arms. Fire and ice collided inside his head and his body caught flame at the very knowledge of where they could go from here. "I think I will now."

Quickly, before anything else could interrupt them, come between them, before Sod's Law could gather resources to stop him, he lowered his lips to hers. She trembled softly in his arms as he brushed his mouth over hers, planning to savor every sip, every glimpse, every sigh of her for as long as his hearts beat in his chest. Her lips parted with aching slowness, and the trembling slowly stopped. He ventured with his tongue between his parted teeth, to brush each of her lips with small, slow strokes, then wandered farther still, into her mouth, to taste her breath, to learn her unique flavor.

She moaned low in her throat and, all at once, was kissing him back, that little pink tongue that so captivated his thoughts now exploring his mouth with intensity that was at once giving and demanding, so very perfect, so very Rose. Her hands clenched against his slender back, her nails scraping lightly against the fabric of his night shirt. His own hands closed on her waist, pulling her closer, teasing the flesh under her nightgown.

He gasped loudly when their lips parted, his blood racing through his veins and his head swimming from the pleasure of their embrace. "Still ok?" he asked softly.

"Ummm," she said, and raised her lips to trace the line of his jaw. His skin tingled where she touched him, so alive every where their bodies met. He lowered his head and nibbled lingeringly at the pale pink shell of her ear, delighting in the way this made her body move against him.

He sighed happily and turned his head to steal another kiss, one he could feel down to his toes. He raked his fingers through her slightly damp hair, massaged the back of her skull just to hear her purr like a kitten, just to enjoy the frisson of his fingers on her skin. When he pulled away from her this time, it was with the knowledge that he had to stop soon or never ever stop touching her at all.

Somehow during the kiss, her small hands had worked their way under his pajama top and were brushing trails up his bare chest, her human body temperature higher than his and setting his skin on fire every where they touched. He gasped her name as her fingers circled his flat nipples, and she smirked up at him, her tongue between her teeth looking like an invitation he could scarcely ignore.

"Are you all right?" she teased, her voice low and husky and seductive.

He wondered how he could get her to say his name in that voice.

He smiled down at her, though, and lay caressing fingers on her face. "Much better than that," he promised.

"Really?" She giggled.

He smirked and, with careful concentration, to insure he didn't hurt her, opened the link between them fully. "Before this gets out of hand, you need to know one last thing. This will never go away. Ever." Then he leaned in and kissed her again, letting her know, this time, exactly what it felt like to him to suck her lower lip between his teeth and nibble at it gently, to tease her lips apart with his tongue, to share the very air she breathed.

And suddenly she was with him, and he could feel it, the way his kiss made her knees tremble, made her heart throb sharply in her chest. She shared with him every nuance, so he knew that she particularly delighted in the way his tongue brushed over the roof of her mouth, that she was filled with wonder and joy and the relief that only came from finding the perfect answer to a question you didn't know you had. She was having trouble thinking clearly, but didn't care, because this was her pleasure and her delight, and this kiss was worth everything.

"My Doctor," she told him, possessively, both with her voice and in her mind.

Relieved, he grinned at her. "My Rose." He lifted her lightly into his arms, as though she were softer than clouds and more precious that diamonds. Her laughter was a merry twinkle in his ears as he spun her around, then set her gently down on the bed. She reclined artfully against the pillows, her eyes admiring him as he slid up the mattress toward her. She had no idea how beautiful she was, in form and word and deed and thought.

So he told her. He told her in words, and then he told her with lingering, adoring kisses that worshipped every exposed inch of her skin. Temptation led him further, and he was never one to refuse the urge to jump. His hands found her breasts, teasing them with the very tips of his fingers, feeling them harden against the silk of her night gown, against the roughness of his fingers. She arched her back into his hands, little gasps of pleasure escaping her lips. When he lowered his head to taste them, the silk added to the experience, even as it separated him from his new goal to taste her everywhere.

When he stopped for a moment, just to look at her, she gave a low groan of frustration and, with surprising strength, wrenched his pajama top open. Buttons popped and flew every which way, and she smirked at him in triumph, availing herself of his lap and settling in to trail burning kisses across his bare shoulders and chest, her hands guiding the shirt off his arms more gently now, though he had to stop caressing her silk clad hip to shake out of the sleeves.

Gradually, he turned her, until she was straddling him, the gown hiked up enticingly around her pale thighs. He kissed her as he worked at the straps and, giving up, pulled back and tugged it off over her head.

The tiny pink towel of just a few days ago had given him a lot to imagine about what he would see now, but the reality was so much more glorious, a vision. He whispered her name as her cheeks colored and her eyes burned into him, her breasts brushing his chest. He fell back onto the bed, taking her with him, keeping her body close to him and turning them so that now he was straddling her.

Then he sat back on his heels and just admired her, her body covered now only by a pale blue bit of cloth at her waist and his hungry gaze. He started babbling, and couldn't stop himself, she was so perfect, from the slender column of her throat, her pale shoulders, her pert, dusky tipped breasts, her slender waist and rounded hips.

"I think you're gorgeous, too," she interrupted. "But, you know, sorta over-dressed."

He grinned and nodded and, with a quick tug and a bit of an embarrassed wriggle, stretched out at her side, bared to her hungry eyes and questing fingers.

Rose's heart nearly stopped as he turned those eyes on her, a self-conscious question so easy to see. What did she think? Seriously, he thought she could think, at a moment like this? With him lying there like that, long, lean body, hard muscle under soft skin, and so obviously, impressively aroused? Her fantasies had always been a little vague. But here he was, now, naked to her loving gaze, looking every inch a human male, only better, because he was the Doctor, because he was hers.

She whispered his name against his skin as she bent to kiss him, shivering, aching as her sensitive nipples rubbed against his body. He was shaking, just a little, though whether it was from nerves or the difficulty of control, she wasn't sure.

Her heart raced desperately with want and longing and desire, as he raised his arms and crushed her to him, tracing the line of her spine, lowering to caress her bottom, sliding down her thighs, maneuvering her body until there was nothing separating them but her tiny knickers. He whispered her name like a prayer, and the very sound of his voice burned into her soul. She rocked against him, an ancient rhythm, and he encouraged her, raising his hips to meet her, circling her nipple with his tongue.

She closed her eyes tight, whimpered and moaned, shocked that any experience in any world could ever be like this. She was hot and wet and burning and impatient, and she had to feel him, all of him, every inch of him, on her, around her, in her, now, now, now.

Light exploded behind her eyelids and she cried out, her eyes flying open now to see him smiling up at her, awestruck, admiring, so in love. It was all she could do to collapse to his chest as he licked the salt from her skin, bringing her back to the world with him, and driving her higher at the same time.

His hips clenched then, and he moved sharply, rolling them over until she was under him. His hands found the waist band of her knickers and eased them from her hips and, with agonizing slowness, down her thighs and off. He sat back to look at her, again, a question in his eyes as plain as his throbbing erection between them.

It would kill her to turn back now, even if she wanted to, which she didn't because she wanted him as much as he wanted her, maybe even more. "Yes, Doctor," she breathed. "Oh, god, yes."

He knelt between her parted thighs, brushing his fingers over the damp nest of dark curls between them. She bucked into his touch, and he bit his lip, seizing the last small measure of control he had left, and slowly guided himself into her ready entrance. Every nerve in his body was singing out for her, for the completion of this priceless union, but he wanted to savor every instant of it. He slid into her, inch by agonizing inch, breathing her glory with every breath he dragged into his mouth. She reached for him them, caught his hips and arched her own and he was inside of her, and on fire. She felt better than he had ever dared imagine.

He let her set their rhythm, long and slow strokes that ached and thrilled and made it hard to remember to breathe. She was with him, around him, and he wondered whether it was more thrilling to feel her or feel her respond to him. He bit his lip, hard, concentrating on that last vestige of control as all her muscles clenched around him, as she screamed out his name with complete abandon in the throes of her pleasure.

The sound shook him to his very soul, stopped time, dragged the entire Universe to a halt, and echoed throughout every moment of his life. She had always felt that she was his, but he was hers, too. So what if he could save the world. He belonged to Rose Tyler, that was the important part. He thrust deep into her again, even as the waves of her own pleasure broke over him, and flung himself after her from the very heights.

*?*

Afterward, they lay together, spent and utterly exhausted, so tangled up in each other that it was hard to tell where she began and he ended. Rose's eyes closed and he turned their bodies carefully, so that she could rest her golden head on his chest. He smiled as he felt her drift off to happy little dreams, the body memory of their lovemaking still tingling on his skin. "Good night, my Rose, my wife," he murmured and, much to his own surprise, felt himself dragged under by sleep. 


	26. Epilogue: All the Loose Ends

Rose slapped him playfully just before they decided to put in an appearance before the world, since they could hear cheerful, laughing voices from the other side of the door. He was explaining to her that she was right, everything really was better with two, even the shower. She rather thought his just-been-shagged hair style and the rather obvious love bites at her neck would be more than enough advertisement to his wild adopted brothers without him cracking random jokes like Captain Jack.  


"Good morning," she said, somewhat shyly as they entered the sitting room.

Fred winked at her. "It's afternoon," she said dryly.

"Oops, really?" said the Doctor and scooped Rose up. "Well, Rose has had a very tiring week, have to put her back to bed now, sorry."

Rose reclined against him, giggling and kicking her feet. "Put me down, you crazy alien," she demanded.

After a few minutes, with Ro and Theed laughing in the background, he obliged, placing her with great care into an armchair and perching on the arm, smirking at her.

Fred stood and came over to kiss her cheek. "Congratulations," she said softly.

"You look like you feel better," Rose replied.

"Yeah, well, some rest, a full body massage, I'm fine. Or as fine as I'm going to be."

"How's Danika?" Rose asked.

"Fully recovered," Ro replied. "She's sleeping, she had an exhausting morning." He waggled his eyebrows at her, exactly as the Doctor usually did. She collapsed into helpless giggles, the buzz of the Doctor's own laughter comfortable against her shoulders where he leaned on her.

"Can we stay for awhile?" Rose asked him some time later, after the five of them had had lunch together and discovered several safe and perfectly ordinary mutual interests.

"I want to," he said and, simple as that, they decided.

*?*

There were still so many things to do, things the Doctor didn't normally handle, like clean-up. Like funerals.

Along with Fred, Rose presided over the state funeral for the murdered guards, in blue robes, with silver stars scattered across them. She had been there when they had died; they had died protecting her and their Polyfather and the people of Malaclypse. She had felt responsible in a way, at least to see them to their final rest, so when Fred asked her, she didn't hesitate.

Before this, Rose would never have thought the Discordians very good at managing mourning. They were always so carefree and flighty, it had seemed so unlikely that sorrow would even be viable in their makeup. As she stood at the head of the huge congregation and spoke an elegy to those whose sacrifice had given them time to protect the Polyfather of Malaclypse and the people caught in that small court area with them, she was surprised to discover that she was speaking not to distraught mourners but to those who celebrated the lives of those who had been lost. Yes, there were tears, and yes, there were weeping spouses and children who had lost a parent, but there was still an overwhelming sense of gratitude, even among the most bereaved, for the life that had been spent with them.

"When I die," she told the Doctor, some time later, since she knew he would long outlive her, "I want a funeral like this. I want someone to break out bottles of wine from the year I was born, I want people to drink toasts to my accomplishments and my simple days, and I want my most loved ones to stand up and tell people the simple things they'll remember about me for the rest of their lives, so everyone will know who I was, not just my name and that I died."

"As you wish," he said, pain quite prevalent in his eyes. "If you don't out-live me, I'll see to it we throw you a really beautiful party. And if you out-live me, for whatever reason, just see to it my body is burned, and everything else will be fine."

"Don't want people to talk about the good things you did?"

"No," he said. "Because it's all tarnished and barren and until I met you, I wasn't sure I was even doing anything worth doing any more."

"I don't know what to say," she told him, completely floored to hear such a thing. In the back of her mind, she could see him, shouting out with ineffable joy, "Everybody lives, Rose!"

"Could really do with more days like those," he said as he felt the brush of her memory. "I don't want to bury you, you know."

"I don't want to cremate you, either," she said sadly. Then, catching a look at his distressed, tired face, she stole a brief moment of humor and added, flippantly, "So I say we put it off."

His face relaxed into a helpless smile, caught in the wonder of her mortal, human joy. "Yeah, why not? We'll just have to keep you in shape."

"Sure, running, running, running, oh, and hopping for our lives."

"Yeah, that," he agreed. Then he kissed her, deeply. "And maybe a more recent addition to your exercise routine?" he asked hopefully.

She laughed helplessly and they moved together, shining brightly, beautiful. It was a fundamental celebration of life, as primitive as the most ancient days, as eternal as time itself.

She lay in his arms much later, finally understanding something that had escaped her small human awareness throughout their life together to this point. He was chaos itself, in his way, that proverbial dancing star, a lone candle in all the windows in the Universe. And she had bound herself to him of her own free will, tied her heart strings to the Storm itself. She was in love with the last of the Time Lords and, though no power was strong enough to drag those words past his lips, he was in love with her, too. He said it to her, every single day since the day they met. Every single time he touched her hand, every time he shared a little bit of his enigmatic, glorious, staggering self with her. Every time the word "Run," left his mouth, he was telling her no more and no less than "Rose Tyler, I love you."

He looked up at her, his hair in wild disarray, his rich brown eyes so huge and sleepy and breath-takingly unguarded. He took her hand and held it tight. When he spoke, his voice was like promise, and held the echos of eternity in it, a life that staggered her in its agelessness, and gave itself into her care. He was beauty incarnate, wonder, love far beyond the mortal meaning of the word. "Now you know."

*?*

The arrival of the Procter of Zydrestra was not pretty. He brought with him an entourage of soldiers, who Fred had quietly surrounded while he wasn't looking. He also brought a tall, powerfully built girl maybe a year Danika's junior, with close shorn ginger hair that looked as if it had been suffered to grow, quite possibly against its owner's wishes.

"There will be blood paid for this insult," the Procter shouted, looking furiously at his daughter dressed in mad Discordian fashion, bright colors that clashed with her hair. She was healthier now and had been laughing on her husband's arm up until the moment of her father's not unexpected incursion. It showed on her face, the joy she found in her new home and her new life. She had a sun burn from the day the lot of them had spent climbing trees in the apple orchard. She had a bad dye job in her hair from where she and Rose had been playing with cosmetics from the market. She had on trainers the Doctor had bought for her the afternoon they'd all gone off to visit Theed's part of the world and she'd almost broken her ankle in her fancy boots.

"Generally speaking," said Ro in his most flippant voice, "people don't insult me in this manner in my own throne room."

"No, they insult you differently," Danika teased, and Rose knew she was brave because he was fearless, and she knew she was safe with him. Rose was all too familiar with that, and drew closer to the Doctor out of a habit that was almost instinct.

"Exactly," Ro said. "Come, Procter. Bring your family and I'll bring mine and we'll sit quietly and discuss this like civilized adults."

"How dare you?" the old man demanded, his face white.

The girl with him took his arm and leaned over to whisper something to him. Whatever it was, it didn't please him, but it did make the blotchy grey color recede from his cheeks a bit. "Very well. But the only thing we will be discussing is reparations."

Rose looked at the Doctor and heard the thunder roll. She hoped, for the Procter's sake, that the old man could hear it as well.

They sat in the largest conference room in the royal wing, the six of them at one end, the Procter, his younger daughter, and four large burly men with him. The Doctor almost found it amusing, that the man had to surround himself with the trappings of his power even when discussing something that obviously embarrassed him.

Theed, apparently, found it to be an excuse to make a nuisance of himself. "Let's go around the table and introduce ourselves," he said, as cheerful and childlike as any primary school teacher. "I'm Theed."

The Doctor smirked at his brother. "The Doctor," he said. "Rose Tyler, my wife."

"Everybody here knows my wife," said Ro, "and I'm the Polyfather of Malaclypse. Call me Ro unless you're really declaring war on me."

"Fred, High Priestess of Eris."

"I've heard of you," said the next man. "General Wan Due. Honored to meet you, High Priestess."

Fred smiled vapidly at him and, as soon as he turned his head, rolled her eyes at her family. Rose put a hand up over her mouth to keep from giggling.

"General Cor Stin."

"General Kadin Karissa," said the red-haired girl. "And my father, Kadin Ardes, Procter of Zydrestra."

"General Tun Car," introduced the grey haired, grey-eyed older man next to the Procter. He looked rather like he might actually be related to the Procter, having similar eyes that looked at Danika with obviously genuine concern.

"General Rob By," said the largest man in the group, a dark skinned, towering man who looked vaguely uncomfortable, as though his chair was a bit small. For his long legs, it probably was.

"You must be my wife's cousin, then," said Ro, thoughtfully. "She hasn't mentioned you once."

"No sir," said General By, quite politely. Somehow, he looked thoroughly amused. "I'm here at the Procter's request."

"Yes, well, the thing is, I asked he bring family, not random military factors. On Malaclypse, anyone can be family if there's a reason, so I thought I'd clear that up. Now that we all understand where the Procter's coming from, let's move on. I married her. I love her. I've been told by my brother - this one, not that one - that he'll marry your other daughter if and only if she'll consent freely."

Karissa looked quite baffled at this.

"I insist, Priestess, that this marriage be annulled immediately," the Procter replied grimly.

"Sorry," said Fred, "you can't imagine how often I get that request. The thing is, I can't annul a marriage that's been consummated, and these two... well..." She blushed artfully. "That's not a problem they seem to have, although apparently, they do fight over the covers."

"I can't believe you told her that," said Ro, laughing.

"I told Rose, she thought it was funny. She told Fred who said I should get used to it."

"Stop this at once!" the Procter shouted. "What have you done to her? Where is her modesty, where is her decorum? Where is that training she has spent her life gaining, toward dignity and proper, respectful behavior?"

Danika stood up, suddenly, and slammed her hands down on the table. She had, apparently, finally had it. "Sorry, Procter," she sneered, copying Rose's accent at its worst, "I kinda forgot balancing books on my head while hiding in those rabbit warren caves in the bloody mountains. If you weren't so sodding insane about your power and your government and your half-arsed military ideals, you might have noticed we had a fucking war on. No one needs a fluff-ball pink gown fairy princess in a war zone."

Karissa had jumped to her feet at the start and, though she originally looked like she intended to put her sister back into her place, the woman's face softened as Danika's tirade continued. When it stopped, she smiled at her sister and nodded.

"You will not speak to me in this manner," the Procter ordered with a sneer that made him look quite whiny.

"She'll speak to you any way she likes," said Theed, coldly. "She's a free human being. You may have sired her, but you don't own her."

"Or anyone," Fred added, gazing pointedly at the towering young general.

"Malaclypse will pay for this insult, this perpetual indignity. You will pay, personally, Polyfather, and all your family besides."

The generals at the table all looked quite askance at the Procter as he said this. Ro had jumped to his feet but, to make matters infinitely more dangerous, so had the Doctor.

"I think that's enough posturing for now," said the Time Lord. Then he dropped into his mode of speech that Rose liked to call "talk for the world" mode - rapid, clipped, and confusing. "I think you'd just best learn to live with your inconvenience, Procter, because my brother's married her and, if I'm not horribly mistaken..." He whipped out the sonic screwdriver, pointed it at Danika for a split second, then tilted it back where he could read it. "Nope, always right. I'm clever like that. Little horror on the way for them. Oh, that'll be fun. I think I'll get you blocks, and maybe a picture book with a pop-up castle in the middle of it. What do you think Rose? Castle or race track?" She looked up at him fondly and rolled her eyes as he grinned brilliantly, turning back on his quarry with the Storm blazing in his eyes. "Nevermind. What you need to understand, Procter, is that the world's moved on beyond the point you're stuck on. You can either catch up, or you can be run down by the crowd behind you. I couldn't care less which, and if you must know, you really don't matter all that much. In the great whopping scheme of the entire political heavens, or really even in the local governing bodies, the planet Zydrestra isn't looming so large as one fairy bun in the entire Atlantic Ocean. So I'd strongly recommend you suck up and drive on. Ro's people have more tech than you. They have more ships than you, they have more really cool toys to power it with than you. What they don't want is a war or even a small, tedious little family feud like you're promising. They want lasting peace. Me, I want to make sure that Zydrestra doesn't end up like the rest of the planets in your system. You had four over there to start with. Couldn't take care of them, think you'd be a little more careful with the last one you've got, right?"

"Who are you that you dare say such things to me?" demanded the Procter.

"Who are you that it'd be particularly daring?" countered Ro.

They could, quite obviously, have continued indefinitely, the Doctor's words having no impact on the Procter's maddening sense of having been cheated out of something, Ro's assurances giving him no satisfaction. Fred's words bounced off the man completely - he wouldn't listen to her, simply because she was female.

"Hi," said Theed, standing up in the middle of his brother's next attempt and walking around the table to tap Karissa on the shoulder. "I'm Theed, and I understand we're supposed to be married. Are you interested?"

"Do you snore?" she asked, coldly, though her lips twitched.

"Only when I'm drunk," he replied humorously. "You?"

"Dunno, no witnesses."

He smirked. "I'll let you know, then," he said.

"She could snore for the planet," Danika interrupted, rolling her eyes. "And so could you, Theed, if Ro's any one to judge by."

"Or this one," Rose agreed, nudging the Doctor with her elbow. "You should get along fine."

"You people are very strange," Karissa said, wonderingly.

"You started it," Theed said, his eyes twinkling madly at her. "Tell you what, why don't we let the conference do its own thing and I'll take you out to play Sink or something?"

"I want to play," said Rose and Fred simultaneously.

"You're not invited," Theed replied haughtily. "What do you say, General? Leave the war and go play a game?"

She looked down at her father glaring at her, and across at her sister's encouraging nod. "Yeah, why not?" she said, and came up beside him. She was only two inches shorter so she looked him right in the eye. He winked at her outrageously and she laughed, a pretty sound that filled the room with an enormous sense of relief. He offered her his arm and she took it and they left the conference behind them. No one even tried to stop them.

"Well, that's promising," said Ro. "So tell me, are we going to try to reach an agreement now?"

The Procter looked after his daughter, then over at General Carr, who nodded briefly. Defeated, the old man slumped into his seat. "What do you want?" he asked.

"My wife's happiness. My family's good will. My people's safety. Peace. Nothing else is particularly worth worrying about."

*?*

They stayed on Malaclypse for more than two months in the end. Rose knew, though, that the world outside of their peaceful haven wouldn't wait forever, so when he woke her one morning with the news that he was ready to face the music and, more to the point, the mother-in-law, she was content to be moving on.

In a flurry of silent discussion as they collected their things to go, they decided to leave the heavily jeweled collar as Rose's gift to the royal collection. The chain they kept, but collar and cuff were returned to the royal collections of Malaclypse where, the Doctor assured Ro as they presented the pair, they truly belonged. "They're part of your history, not ours," Rose said. "Even if they did make ours. It's important that they stay here. Something for the world to remember us by."

They promised to return as soon as they could. "At least for Theed's wedding," the Doctor assured them, "since he helped out so much with mine."

"Yeah, we won't be a hundred years off this time, either," said Rose.

The good-byes were tearful and cheery at the same time. Rose would have been surprised before, but didn't even bat an eye this time when the Doctor threw his arms around the twins and pulled them in for a large hug. He kissed Fred's cheek, offered to take her with them, and told his adopted family he loved them. Rose cried more from that than anything.

"Take care of him, he needs you," Fred whispered.

Rose nodded, too choked up to be able to say a thing.

"Told you chaos would handle everything."

Rose nodded helplessly again and laughed a little. "I love you so much, Fred," she said.

"Love you, too, Rose. Take care of yourself."

"Don't forget to write," Theed instructed as they stepped toward the TARDIS to leave.

The Doctor swept her up and carried her inside, while she laughed and demanded to be put down, and dashed tears from her cheeks. "Your first time into your home as a bride, you get carried, and that's all there is to it," he said. "Half the societies in the universe have that idea."

He closed the doors behind them as he set her down beside him, keeping her close because she was emotional and fragile and, to be honest with himself, he needed her because he wasn't feeling excruciatingly excellent, either.

He cuddled Rose close and let her cry on his shoulder as he started the dematerialization sequence. The TARDIS was singing gleefully in his head, smug that her little trip to Malaclypse had turned out even beyond her expectations. He got the impression she thought he and Rose belonged together, had always belonged together.

"I hate to think of Fred being alone, with her brothers married and everything," Rose said softly as the TARDIS swirled aimlessly through the Vortex.

"She doesn't believe in lasting commitments, our Fred," he said. "Except to her job."

"Let's take Jack with us when we go back, then," Rose suggested cheekily.

"Good idea." The Doctor laughed out loud, and picked her up again, the golden rose girl who could bring sunshine with her whatever the gloom around them looked like. "Got a whole universe to show you, my Rose, my wife," he said softly. "All of time and space and everything in it, and it's yours. But I thought I'd start with our bedroom."

"Good idea," she repeated and settled herself into her husband's arms. Their life together would be chaos and madness, no doubt, but they'd picked the perfect place to start it and everything else was better with two.


End file.
